Star Wolf: Crossfire
by Schattenhund
Summary: When Star Wolf decides to let a pair of smugglers hide out on the Sargasso Station, they soon find themselves caught in a struggle for control of an ancient technology. Will Star Wolf choose a side, or find its own way? WolfXOC.
1. Prologue: The Getaway

Author's Note: Well, here goes nothing. Let me know what you think of the prologue, particularly how I introduce the three characters. They're all OC's who are important to the storyline, but don't worry, canon characters will show up very soon (as in next chapter). It's my first fic, but I'm an adult, so give it to me straight.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than Kip, Marl, and CID.

Prologue: The Getaway

"Looks like five ships just launched from the starboard fighter bay" Marl announced over the intercom of the modified J67 freighter as it sped away from a Dreadnought class battleship bearing the green trim of a Cornerian vessel, "and I'm picking up energy readings from the port fighter bay, too. Looks like they cracked your firewall, Kippy. Sorry" she apologized.

Seated in the cockpit, Kip Phoenix swore softly. He hadn't expected the "present" that he'd left in the Dreadnought to last very long. After all, it was just a simple firewall that prevented the mag-locks keeping the fighters secured in the bays from disengaging, but he had hoped to have at least locked the freighter into its jump sequence by the time the Cornerians cracked it.

"Well, that's just fan-freaking tastic" he groaned as he continued to furiously scan the ship's navigation computer for a safe haven to flee to. "Well, since you're already in the gunner's nest, Marl, would you mind getting on the main gun and cooking a few of these bastards for me?"

"Broiled or deep fried?" the she-wolf asked.

Kip flicked a switch on the dashboard, powering on a holographic HUD that kept him updated on the integrity of the ship's shields, hull, and power routing. "Just broil 'em, if you please, miss" he requested offhand, giving a few quick commands to the nav. computer. "Broil" was the pair's code word for "stun" or "disable", whereas "fry" or any variation on it, obviously, meant "shoot to kill". "I'd rather not give the Feds reasons to add to the already high bounty we're likely to have hovering over us because of this job." He diverted more power from the shields to the thrusters, hoping to minimize the speed advantage the Cornerian interceptors undoubtedly had over the freighter. "Oh, and I hope you strapped in. I'm pushing the engines to their maximum now."

"Of course I buckled up, 'Dad'" Marl chuckled, and a low humming was heard as the ship redirected some of its power reserves to the main gun and turrets. "Broiled Feds, coming right up. Mind if I fire up the auto-turrets?" she asked.

The nav. computer relayed data on the next sector of the system to Kipp's biomechanical eye, and despite mounting frustration, the half-fennec fox grinned. "By all means; the more guns the merrier".

He ordered up a list of potential ports in the sector he was examining, giving thanks once again for the upgrades to his neural interface that he'd bought on Macbeth last month. He could establish a much stronger connection with remote enabled computers than before, and the machines in turn now responded all but instantaneously to his mental commands; he and his partner would have been toast four times over today, at least, if it hadn't been for the tiny processor hardwired to the half-fennec's brain. Still, he had no idea where they could run to, now that the Feds knew what his partner and he had done. Corneria, obviously, was out of the question; the Federal Prison Station in Sector Y was easier to break into undetected than that rock. Fichina, Katina, Aquas, and Zoness, the four other planets that had officially joined Corneria to form the Cornerian Federation after the Anglar War, were also dead ends, for obvious reasons.

An alarm blared, and Kip noted four red radar blips coming up on his tail. The one in front fortunately froze and faded to grey, Marl apparently making short work of the point ship, and Kip wasted no time blasting forward at full speed, banking sharply to the left to make their enemies' job a little harder, and hopefully make Marl's a little easier. He continued to perform periodic banks and, though too many could potentially blow the freighter's stabilizers, quick flips and barrel rolls as he continued to demand more options from the nav. computer.

Eladard was close, and neutral territory, but Aerospace Dynamics practically called the shots on the planet these days, and Kip doubted his "dear old uncle", George, would risk losing the good will of the Cornerian fleet, his company's longest standing client, just to protect his rogue nephew.

Titania and Macbeth were similar stories: neutral planets caught between the Federation and their rival entity, the recently formed Venomian Directorate. They would be all too willing to hand over two thieves, if only to ensure the Cornerians didn't have a reason to "send in the troops"; and Kip knew the Feds wouldn't think twice about invading a planet to find Marl and him, knowing what they'd taken from them.

Normally, Dash Bowman's quickly burgeoning autocracy would be all too happy to turn a blind eye to the presence of anyone who had pissed of the Cornerians, but the half-fennec knew that the second any of the chimp's eyes and ears got wind of what he and Marl had boosted from the battleship, they'd be just as eager as the Feds to get their hands on it. That ruled out Venom, Fortuna, and Papetoon, which had recently surrendered control to Bowman following a military coup. The two smugglers had shared a long laugh over that bit of irony.

The ship shuddered, the dashboard displaying an additional thirteen percent dip in shield stability. So far, the frieghter's shields were down to 63 percent. Kip glanced at the radar, and noted six… make that eight red blips closing on the freighter, fast. "Are you actually firing that thing or what, Marl?" he demanded.

"Don't get your boxers in a knot, Kipp!" his partner snapped in response, the sound of laser fire intermixing with her voice. "We are dealing with a battleship full of fighters, here. Besides," she huffed, "if you'd been paying more attention, you'd know that I've already disabled four ships, so why don't _you_ help _me_ and get us the hell out of here!"

Kip gripped the controls tighter. "I'm working on it!" He'd need to buy a little more time. "CID!" he yelled.

A roughly spherical, black droid, about one and half times the size of a medicine ball, propelled itself out of its charging unit with a powerful thrust of two thick arms attached to his frame, and hovered into the cockpit, regarding the pilot with the three orange optical sensors arranged in a triangle on its front.

"Yes, Father?" CID, or the Combat and Infiltration Drone, asked.

Kipp grimaced. He hated how the droid refused to call him anything but "Father". "Would you go take control of the aft auto-turrets, CID? You're a better shot than the onboard combat computer".

CID whirred loudly, a sure sign he was excited. "Certainly, Father" he said, turning to go join Marl in the turret control room.

"And CID" Kip continued, concerned, "don't tamper with the firing settings this time. The fact that we're firing ion charges, rather than plasma, is NOT an accident."

CID's voice modulator emitted a reasonable imitation of a sigh. "As you wish, Father" he moaned, and continued out of the cockpit.

Kip shook his head. When he'd given CID the prototype Combat Logic Program he'd swiped from one of his uncle's labs, he hadn't expected it to make CID _relish_ the idea of battle, but that was the only way to describe the way the droid now took to any combat related task.

"We've got incoming missiles" Marl's voice once again came over the intercom. "Now might be the time to use that toy you've been saving."

Kip chuckled. "Well, shit. I was getting attached to the little fellow, too."

"I'll buy you a new one next time we're on Titania, brother."

Kip could hear Marl smiling through the intercom. Fortunately, it was contagious. "I'm gonna hold you to that, sis" he warned, flipping a switch on the console. He was rewarded with a muffled hissing sound as his "toy", a special ion mine that detonated when it sensed the heat of the encroaching missiles, was released. "Ion Chaff", they called it on the black market. The superheated metal thrown around by the explosion baffled the missiles' guidance systems, and even better, Kip had the satisfaction of watching five enemy blips turn grey on his radar as their pursuers passed through the high density electron cloud left in the wake of the explosion. He'd have to thank that ballistics expert he'd bought the mine from next time he saw him. His expression fell again as he went into a new series of evasive maneuvers, trying to minimize the damage as a three new fighters dropped his shields to thirty percent with a salvo of laser blasts; more like _if_ he ever saw the guy again.

A quiet "beep" drew his attention back to the lines of text running down the sightline of his biomechanical eye. The nav. computer was requesting permission to jump to one of the "transit stations" orbiting Sauria. Normally, the space stations where off-worlders looking to do business with the Dinosaur Clans congregated were great hideaways, since no military force, save that of the Saurians themselves, was allowed access. However, countless bounty hunters had moved their base of operations to the stations, chasing after convicts inadvertently released by the chaos of both the Aparoid and Anglar invasions. They'd be more than happy to hunt Kipp and Marl on the Cornerians' behalf. The half-vulpine gritted his teeth and rejected the nav. computer's request.

"Father?" CID sounded… frightened? "The enemy fighters seem to be falling back a bit. I believe that the battleship may be preparing to join the fray."

Kip switched to long range sensors, and sighed when he notice what CID had. There was an easily noticeable build up of energy towards the front of the Dreadnought, where the main cannon was. Apparently the Cornerians had finally gotten fed up with them. Luckily, the clever hacker had left one last, much more advanced "gift" inside the battleship's systems. The energy signature continued to build up for a few moments, then became erratic as the virus kicked in, forcing the mirrors that focused the energy into a massive plasma blast to realign mid-charge. Within seconds, the pent up energy found a rather violent manner of release, taking the entire main gun with it in a fiery blast that Kip could see out the canopy of the cockpit as he performed another evasive bank.,

"Holy hell, Kip!" Marl scolded , assuming the explosion had been her partner's doing. "Next time you rig up something like that, tell me, so I'm not scared shitless when I don't need to be!"

CID added his two cents, sounding dejected. "And you refused to let me shoot to kill! Why do you get to have all the fun?"

Kip sighed. The droid was right, several Cornerians were probably vaporized in the blast, but he really needed to teach CID a lesson about killing's relationship to "fun". "I thought we'd be out of here before the battleship managed to break my firewalls. It was a precaution" the half-fennec was a little steamed at the situation, and his voice began to crescendo. "You _know _I don't kill unless I absolutely must, CID!"

"Easy, Kip" Marl said, trying to be as soothing as possible. "I don't like that the plan's gone to hell, or the killing for that matter" she continued, taking down another fighter as she spoke, "but unless you want to add our corpses to the pile, I'd recommend you just hurry up and send us somewhere."

Kip sighed. His partner was right. He'd been trying every maneuver he could think of, and while it had bought them time, the relentless Cornerian assault had left their shields in shambles. They were barely hanging on at twelve percent, and Kip didn't need his instruments to tell him one of the freighter's wings had taken damage; the thing was much more unruly than it had been half a minute ago. Problem was, he had almost exhausted his options. He thought they'd be best off jumping into the middle of the asteroid belt just beyond Corneria, and hope that they found a derelict mining station that could be brought back online. Normally, that was the kind of risk he wrote off as "suicidally heroic", and he tended to shy away from even the remotely heroic, but at this point, Marl and him, for lack of a better phrase, were postively screwed if they didn't lock into a jump in the next few seconds. He was about to give the order when the nav. computer delivered him one last, unexpected option.

It was an old set of coordinates. Kipp had heard the station had gone active again since the Anglar War, but there were no guarantees that it was still in that spot. Most stations not bound directly to at least a planetoid's gravitational field drifted slowly over time, and he'd heard a rumor that this one had recently gone fully mobile with a set of experimental, high power warp engines (no doubt pieced together using pirated technology). He also had his doubts the guys who ran the place would open the front doors for thieves. Or at least, for thieves who'd swiped one of their shipments a year ago. Bounty hunters shied away from the place, however, and the station masters themselves preferred other forms of work to hunting bounties. He gave the ok for a jump, and the nav. computer did its thing. The freighter took a couple jarring hits before the jump began, but was soon safely locked into its warp route.

* * *

Once the freighter was safely on its way through hyperspace, Marl entered the cockpit, the flickering lights (Kip made a mental note to look at the lighting system when they next landed) embedded in the walls casting odd shadows on her face, making the normally copper fur around her muzzle, face, and ears appear much closer in tint to the black, copper, and grey streaked coat that began between her ears and dominated the back of her head and neck. "Well, we've had cleaner getaways" she admitted, shaking her head and grinning. "Mind telling me what took you so long, Kip? You're usually more decisive than that." 

Kip smiled innocently. "Well I thought you could use the targeting practice, kiddo."

"Watch it, buster, you're not _that _much older than me."

"All right, all right, no need to kill me just yet, sis" Kip help up his paws defensively, maintaining an expression of mock fear. "Honestly, though, I had a hard time finding a safe haven. The Cornerians aren't going to let this slide; they know what we took. I'm almost certain of it."

"True" Marl admitted with a sigh. "Why else would they bother sending the ship's whole fighter contingent after us?" She rested her head on her left paw and glanced at the half-fennec pilot. "So where'd you finally settle on?"

Kip chuckled nervously. "You're not gonna be happy, but" he said, "we're going to see if the Sargasso Industrial Station will let us dock."

The she-wolf's emerald eyes grew two sizes. "Star Wolf's home base?!" she gasped, sitting up. "You honestly think _Star Wolf_ is going to provide us sanctuary?"

The half-fennec shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "You've got a better idea, sis? O'Donnell and his boys are wanted men too, you know, and the Cornerians are the one's fronting the money for their heads as well."

Marl crossed her arms and frowned, clearly not convinced. "An alliance of the wanted, then; and just how do you propose to sell Star Wolf on the idea?'

Kip just grinned. "Now you know I don't plan that far ahead, miss. We've got a good four hours before we leave warp, provided none of the damaged engines blow out," he explained with a wink. "I think I can whip up something that'll at least pique Wolf's interest by then."

"Oh yeah? How?"

"Same way I always do!" Kip pulled his black and grey paddy cap down so it partially covered his eyes, and crossed his arms behind his head. "I'm gonna take a nap! Wake me up when we're about half an hour from the station. Oh, and don't let CID fiddle with the turrets. If he keeps trying to increase their firepower without my help he's gonna blow this whole outfit to hell."

Marl nodded and smiled; Kip hadn't slept much in the days leading up to this job, and he knew she'd been worried about him. She might be his "little sister", but she often acted more like his mother. "All right, bro, I'll keep this bucket flying for you. Do me a favor and try not to snore."

Kip grunted and closed his eyes. "For the last time, I _don't_ snore."

"Whatever you say, Noisy."

Kip suppressed a chuckle and focused on the low humming emanating from the console (he found the noise soothing). As he drifted off to sleep, he began to imagine what it would be like meeting Wolf and his gang. A number of the scenarios that popped up ended with the smuggler getting shot, but he couldn't suppress of feeling of ecstatic anticipation. It was one of those moments where he admitted to himself that he was often a bit of an adrenaline addict.


	2. Boredom Interrupted

Author's note: Merry Christmas!!! Here's a new chapter for your holiday enjoyment, and thanks to notfromearth 7 for reviewing and adding me to their alerts. I really appreciate it. That being said, I notice that I've had many more hits than that, almost 50 now. I'm going to keep working on this, regardless of how many reviews I get, but I'd really appreciate it if I could get more reviews, so I can know what might need improvement and maybe alter the story's directions based on popular demand (though I don't make any guarantees about that last bit). Anyway, Star Wolf enters the picture this time, with a new addition of my own design. Hope you like her! Have a blessed holiday, folks :)

Disclaimer: The only things I own are Kip, CID, Marl, and now Skadi.

P.S. What do you think of Wolf's audio log? I'm thinking of using it as a recurring device, so we can get more of Wolf's thoughts. If you like it, you should check out Obsidian Thirteen's SF story "Hero", where a similar device appears in one chapter (figured I'd give this story a nod, seeing as it was here first, and is really good, in my opinion).

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Chapter 1: Boredom Interrupted

Audio Log: August 21, year 3534 of the Cornerian Standard Calendar. Time – 17:35

_This is Wolf O'Donnell, captain of the Star Wolf mercenary outfit, and overseer of the soldiers and staff on the Sargasso Industrial Station. This is my first audio log in… well, it's pretty much the first one ever. Things have been slow as hell on the station recently, and Star Wolf hasn't flown any major jobs since we moved back onto the station. Just sporadic raids on merchant freighters, which basically only yields enough to keep the station running and everyone living here fed. It's the damn bounties; we can't take most of the contracts that are offered to us because, if we show our faces anywhere near anything owing allegiance to Corneria, we'll be dead or captured in a matter of minutes. I'm getting damn sick of it, too. It's been a year and half and, despite the fact that McCloud and __Lombardi__, of all animals, have both gone on record multiple times recommending that my boys and I be pardoned for our past crimes in light of our assistance with the Anglars, the damn Parliament still keeps putting off a vote on the matter. Heh, ain't democracy grand? I swear, bombs and armadas are the only things that make those assholes do anything. I mean, I was never fond of Andross, but the old ape sure proved that point. _

_Bah, I'm ranting again, and I feel like killing something. Why am I even doing this? This lull is making us all go nuts. Powalski started one of these audio journals, too; in fact he was the one suggested I start one. "Helps you keep your thoughts straight" he said. Pfeh, yeah right. As for Panther… well he's really gone off the deep end. The cat's been writing poetry, of all things, and of course he's been pestering Skadi, Star Wolf's new mechanic and, since she seems to have knack for it, Sargasso's security chief. She tracked us down just over six months ago looking for work, and Panther as usual has been relentlessly pursuing her. He's been getting worse lately, since there's not much else to do, and it's easy to see that she's getting sick of it. Uggghh, normally I just let Panther alone. He's earned my trust, and I'm not one to meddle in personal affairs, but at this rate, I'm gonna have to step in. Heh, maybe if I get lucky, Skadi will just haul off and vaporize Panther. That'd be perfect. Of course, Powalski would be more than happy to "administer justice", if I asked him to, but if Panther's overt fondness for anything with a double X chromosome is going to get him killed, I'd rather not have it be by my order. Meh, I guess I'll bring it up with Skadi and see what she wants. If she says something, I'll talk to Panther._

_(Sounds of arguing muffled by a door. Hiss of a door opening, Voices become audible)_

_What the hell?_

"_For God's sake, Panther, when are you going to quit!"_

"_Mmmm, so angry! Why so upset, Belleza?"_

"_Why am I upset!? You inconsiderate, unprofessional, low-life…"_

_Speak of the devil. Guess this is it for now, I better play peacekeeper. I'll mention if Panther's alive at the end of the day in the next log._

"_Calm down, dearest Snow Angel. Here, Panther shall comfort you."_

"_Touch me again, and I _will_ castrate you with this arc welder."_

…_Looks like it's gonna be a great day._

"Were you two just looking for an audience for your little drama" Wolf growled at the pair of arguing animals, switching off the recorder on the kitchen table in front of him, "Or is it safe to assume that at least one of you has actual business with me?"

Panther and the white vixen both fell silent, the vixen clearly mortified, while the big cat appeared only slightly amused at having a witness to the argument. "Sorry to disturb you, captain, Panther didn't see you there" he apologized with his trademark, velvety tone, and flashed a sly smile. "I was just telling _el Angel de Nieve_ here how lovely she is, and she seems to have taken offence for some…"

"Stop playing dumb, lecher!" the vixen, Skadi, retorted, her sharp accent, similar to a Russian's, coming through like a bell. "You've been trying to get me out of this uniform and into your bunk for six months. I've tried letting you down nicely, but you're incorrigible!" Her already ice hued eyes grew even colder, and she gripped the arc welder strapped to her hip tightly. "Now you try to lay those greasy palms of yours on me, and expect me to believe you didn't mean to! Give me one reason why I shouldn't make good on my previous threat!"

Panther held his hands out before him, frowning. "But my dear, an accident is precisely what it was." His voice took on an indignant tone. "Besides, Panther cleanses himself daily. There is not an inch of him that is 'greasy', oh frigid Beauty."

"So I'm supposed to believe that the button of my coat just _popped_ off, without any help from those claws of yours?" Skadi demanded, somehow managing to make it look like she was glaring down at the cat, despite the fact that Panther was easily at least 25 centimeters taller than her.

"Panther is sorry for that," the black cat apologized, and if he was faking remorse, he was certainly doing a good job of it. "But Panther takes pride in keeping his body in top form, and that includes sharpening his claws." He broke eye contact with the vixen a moment to glance downwards. "However, if Panther may be so bold, the look suits you. Such a beautiful figure should not be hidden in shame, my dear."

Due to her snowy fur, the vixen could not hide the crimson hue her cheeks adopted as she turned her back to Panther and crossed her arms, depriving him of the view of what his claws had wrought, while simultaneously allowing Wolf to get a good look. Skadi's high collared, black jacket, styled after those worn by Fichinan military officers, had been stripped of the second button the top, and she had unbuttoned the two snaps adjacent to it, revealing just enough of the neckline of her grey undershirt to provide onlookers with an idea of what exactly was underneath it. Truth be told, it _did _remind Wolf that she was actually a rather attractive vixen, something her modesty and rather formal attitude often made him forget, but he was simply too irritated and, he told himself, professional to dwell on that fact.

"That's enough!" the lupine snarled, standing up with enough force to send his chair sliding a good distance from him. He glared at Skadi and Panther, his new biomechanic eye's iris flashing the color of a bright orange flame, and finally spoke to the vixen. "Explain what happened" he commanded.

Skadi straightened up like a soldier at attention, and recounted the incident as if it were the results of a scientific experiement. "I was on my way here to relay a message to you, sir, when this… beast" she spat the last word out and glanced at the sable cat, her almost deadpan tone cracking with veiled anger, "waylaid me. I tried to ignore him and get on my way, but he wouldn't hear it. He blocked my path, and that" she fingered the hole in her coat where there had previously been a button, "Is when he popped the button off my coat."

Wolf turned his burning gaze to Panther, clenched his right fist, and raised the eyebrow above his good eye, daring the feline to lie to him. "She telling the truth, Caruso?"

Panther merely leaned on the wall, and flicked a piece of lint off of the sleeveless, dark green flight vest he'd come to favor after the Anglar War. "Mostly, but as Panther already said, the loss of the button was not intentional. He merely attempted to trace the outline of the little snow angel's neck as he spoke. A harmless act of flirtation where Panther was raised…"

"You must have been raised in a brothel," Skadi huffed, and Panthers yellow eyes flared with a dangerous light.

"Be angry if you must, Skadi" the big cat warned, "but refrain from insulting Panther's home. He will not suffer such dishonor."

Wolf scowled and raised his hand, motioning for Skadi to hold her tongue. "Keep it civil, or I'll call Leon and let him decide what to do with you two." Once the two had been calmed by the, in truth, idle threat, he waved Panther on.

"Yes, well" Panther cleared his throat. "To shorten the tale, she recoiled from Panther's touch, rather violently he'd like to add, and the button of her coat snagged on Panther's claw."

Wolf sighed, sensing a soon to explode headache. Neither one of them was outright lying; his eye was currently set to scan the vital signs and heat signatures of living things in his sightline, including heart rate, and neither of their vitals had altered in such a way as to imply a lie. Regardless, he decided to lay down some new ground rules. "Panther," he said at length, making sure he had the big cat's undivided attention. "I don't give a damn how things were where you came from right now," the steel willed captain explained, "but you have gotta cut Skadi a break here, enough is enough. Now" Wolf nodded toward Skadi, "apologize to our mechanic."

Panther, thankfully, didn't seem to be in the mood to argue, and bowed slightly to the vixen. "Forgive Panther, _Senorita_, for being blinded by your beauty."

Skadi rolled her eyes. "Well, at least it's something."

Wolf nodded, pleased, but didn't smile. "Good, now do us all a favor and leave her be for a while." He turned to regard Skadi again, "Now, what did you need to tell me? Is something going to delay the jump tomorrow?"

The artic fox, still standing at attention, quickly went into her message. "Not exactly, sir. Station Security detected an unidentified ship approaching the station about" she glanced at her timepiece, "twelve minutes ago now. The pilot has made contact, claiming he's a smuggler, and that he'll only discuss his business on the station with you, Captain O'Donnell. We have all defenses ready to shoot him down, as per protocol, but I thought it would be best to clear it with you first, sir."

Wolf blinked, surprised. Skadi and the other engineers on the station had finished fashioning the parts Star Wolf had been purchasing (and occasionally stealing) into the massive set of seven warp drives required to make the old industrial platform a fully mobile base four months ago, in order to allow no one to find them unless he, or another Star Wolf member, wanted them to. It seemed a useful investment, considering they were still wanted men. Whoever this pilot was, he had a lot of guts to show up uninvited, and Wolf was curious as to how he'd known to find them here. Years ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to hand down the kill order; to play it "safe". Now, however…

"Return to communications, and tell security to hold their fire. I'll be there momentarily to talk to the pilot."

Skadi gave the lupine a bemused expression, then slowly nodded before turning to leave the room. "As you wish, Captain."

"And Skadi" the mercenary captain added, acting on a sudden thought, "The titles aren't necessary; the only reason you haven't flown any jobs with Star Wolf is that you haven't got a ship yet." He smiled at the young vixen, his biomechanic eye reverting to a cool grey tone, matching his good eye. "It's just Wolf."

Skadi's expression went from confused to surprised, and a crimson blotch began to creep onto her face again. "I was, umm, just trying to show the proper respect, Cap…"

Wolf held up his hand. "You're a hard worker; that's all I need" he assured her, assuming a serious expression once again, "or do I have to order you to treat me like an equal?"

Skadi beamed at the lupine. "Thank you, sir… err, Wolf," She stammered, "I'll let Communications know to expect you". With that, she excused herself again and left the kitchen in a rush.

Wolf turned his attention back to Panther, fully prepared to warn him once again against touching the engineer, but was stopped mid thought by the curious and, worse, amused expression on the ebony feline's face. "What?"

A fiendish grin snaked its way onto Panther's face, and his long tail twitched with mirth. "Wolf, Wolf, Wolf," he muttered in disbelief. "Unless Panther is forgetting things today, you have never been an animal that made a habit of smiling, even at females."

Wolf froze, replaying the last few moments in his mind. He had smiled at Skadi, hadn't he? What the hell had gotten into him? Stranger still, he realized that he actually began to laugh a little as he shook his head in shock. "Well, I'm not sure how to explain that," he admitted. "Maybe Leon's right; maybe all those encounters with McCloud have softened me up a bit."

Panther let out a long, deep laugh. "Ah, Wolf, you are nothing if not amusing." The big cat slapped Wolf on the shoulder and smiled wide, showing a mouthful of needlelike teeth. "Well, if you find such a change undesirable, then Panther recommends that you avoid the little Snow Angel. Females can do much to hinder one's attempts to 'toughen up', in his experience."

Wolf narrowed his eyes. There were only so many things that Panther might be implying with that warning, and the mercenary didn't like any of them. "Just get your ass over to communications, Caruso. I'll be there once I've returned this recorder to my room." The lupine snatched the recorder from the table and retreated from the room, but not before his ebony comrade threw one last verbal barb at him.

"See what Panther means, dear friend? She leaves the room for a matter of seconds, and you're well on your way back to your old self! Panther knows what he's talking about, no?"

The cat's raucous laughter chased Wolf all the way down the hall.

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Mere minutes later, the door to Communications slid open to allow Wolf, now clad in his signature black and grey flight suit with spikes in the shoulder pads, to enter. He glanced around the chamber, taking in his surroundings. Panther was reclining against the far left wall, a bored look on his face. He gave the wolf a lazy salute when the two locked eyes. Leon, apparently, must have been informed of the situation, as well, for the chameleon was standing beside the railing overlooking "the pit", a recessed portion of the room where the communications officers, a pair of apes, were patching Skadi through to one of the main hangers, no doubt in case the ship was aloud to land. Pleased to see things running smoothly, Wolf decided to take a moment to check in with the only other charter member of Star Wolf in the room. "What do you think of all this, Leon?" He asked the reptile, moving to stand at the opposite railing.

A scale-armored eye pivoted to regard the mercenary, its beady black pupil betraying none of the thoughts of its master with its blank, calculating gleam. "As always," he declared, "I shall wait to pass final judgment until after I've seen the face of this smuggler we are dealing with. However" the eye facing Wolf turned to rejoin its partner in focusing on the primary video screen in the chamber, upon which the words "Uplink Requested" were displayed in bright red-orange lettering, "I would advise that you watch this pilot, and any companions he has carefully, should you allow him to board Sargasso. I've seen the scans of the vessel" the reptilian continued. "For a simple smuggling ship to have taken such a beating, and for the pilot to take such a risk as to chase after a station that can move at almost any time, well, let's just say somebody must be mad at him, and he's pretty damn afraid of what they're capable of doing to any companions of his, if not to himself." The scales enshrouding the assassin's eye contracted, covering up the tiny pupil with a shield of green, and the lizard sighed. "Still, the fact that he's angered someone powerful also makes him potentially useful to us in a number of ways, depending on the why of the matter." The scales receded again, and the pupil once again focused on the steel grey wolf. "I have faith that you'll make the best decision, once you've talked to him, Wolf."

The lupine mercenary smirked and nodded, wondering once more at the chameleon's odd personality. Ever alert, Wolf had only seen Leon fully relax three times in the decade plus they'd been flying together, and on one of those occasions it was only because the reptilian had been near death. On the battlefield, the lizard's personality could only be described as predatory; he approached combat the way a physician approached surgery, and carried his orders out to the letter, even taking a twisted sort of enjoyment out of toying with his "prey" in the team's early days, earning him the reputation for which he was feared by every law-abiding citizen of the Lylat system; that of a psychopath. Wolf, however, had come to understand that the chameleon was far beyond such a simple categorization. True, Leon had come off as a little… blood thirsty when he'd first joined Star Wolf, but after he'd nearly been killed by Star Fox over Fichina during the final Lylat War, he'd changed considerably. The battlefield was still one of the only places where he seemed comfortable, and though he still relished the prospect of a fight, especially whenever the team encountered McCloud and his cronies, Leon began to show a kind of respect, perhaps even remorse, towards those he eliminated.

Powalski's analytical mind wasn't just another weapon in his arsenal of silenced blasters and combat knives, either. Though Wolf was the "heart" of the team and made the tough, split second decisions in battle, the mercenary readily admitted that, when the situation was more akin to a spider's web than a set of doors, Powalski was the one that everyone expected to trace the many threads of the web first. He could weigh consequences, explore possibilities, and make projections like a professional statistician, and Wolf only went against the reptile's reasoning when his own instincts or personal code dictated that he should.

In fact, the only thing that Leon didn't apply his normal mode of thinking to, apparently, was Wolf. Even when Wolf ended up tying the team to the single greatest threat the Lylat System had ever faced, Dr. Andross, and they'd subsequently been ostracized for it, Leon appeared to remain confident in the lupine. Years later, when they'd been forced to leave Sargasso, the only "home" Star Wolf ever had, for almost two years following the Aparoid invasion, he had never shown the faintest hint of discontent with the decisions Wolf made to keep the team off its enemies' respective radars. True, Panther had been largely supportive of Wolf's leadership during his tenure as a team member, too, and Skadi was quickly proving herself to be an equally stalwart ally, but if those two were "loyal", then Powalski's dedication, not just to Star Wolf, but to Wolf as a leader, was on another level entirely.

"Skadi," Wolf grabbed the vixen's attention. She turned to peer up at the lupine, and though it was small, smiled at him for the second time that day. Well, she was certainly happy all of a sudden, he mused. He didn't show it, and certainly didn't stop to wonder why it happened, but he was briefly aware of being pleased by that fact. "You can patch me through to the pilot now" he told her, putting on his best poker face to greet their "guest". "It's time we saw who we're dealing with."

Skadi motioned to one of the apes at the communications console, and a moment later the large, blank video screen blinked to life, revealing the image of what, at first glance, appeared to be a vaguely familiar male fennec wearing a black and grey paddy cap, but upon closer examination was actually something more complicated. His fur was brown, rather than the sandy blonde that "true" fennecs' tended to be, and his ears, though large, were not as big or rigid as a fennec's should be, and the right one in particular began to flop over upon itself towards the tip. Wolf concluded that he must be a mixed species, likely fennec and canine blood mixed in roughly equal proportions. Like Wolf, the half-breed had a biomechanic left eye, though this one apparently hadn't been designed with subtlety in mind. The iris of the eye was a rich purple, compared to the brown of its natural counterpart, and a pair of small, but still obvious wire casings curled out from the top of the eye, and up into the smuggler's forehead. He appeared to be addressing someone off camera, but upon realizing that Wolf had finally contacted him, flashed him a rakish, confident grin.

"Well, as I live and breathe! Wolf O'Donnell, in the flesh!" Wolf maintained his scowl, hoping to intimidate the half-fennec into skipping to the point, but the nut job actually _laughed_ at his expression. "Well, we're looking happy as a Sand Stalker in heat, if I do say so myself. I didn't wake you up from a nap, did I?"

Wolf's scowl deepened. Great, a comedian. Well, at least he'd get along well with Panther, but that really wasn't doing much to improve the first impression this guy was making on him. Mentally gritting his teeth, Wolf pressed forward. "Real cute, pal, you've got me in stitches" he said low and even, his expression barely altering enough to allow the words to escape his muzzle. "How's about you give me a name to go along with that 'winning personality'?" He made a subtle hand signal, asking Skadi to run a records check on the guy. The vixen, shortly after arriving on the station, had provided the team with total access to the criminal and civilian records of the Cornerian Archives. He'd asked her how she'd managed the feat once, for she'd never shown much aptitude for hacking in the time she'd been with the team, but she'd dodged the subject, claiming that she'd worked briefly in the Archives, and had secretly preserved her account in the system before leaving. It was bullshit, but she hadn't given him any reason to press the issue, so he'd accepted the benefits of her "gift" and went about his business. Right now, they could tell if this guy was giving his real name by cross checking any records they could find on him. If he lied about his own name, it would say a lot about just how on edge this guy was, and about whether they could trust him.

The half-fennec paused a moment before he spoke again. "Kip Phoenix, at your service, chief." He smirked again, and the iris of his biomechanic eye brightened a little. "Nice trick, by the way, checking my statements against the records in the Archives."

Wolf tensed, and glanced down at Skadi, silently demanding to know how the smuggler was spying on what they were doing. The vixen shrugged and rushed over to the ape that was running the records check, shoving him out of the way so she could take control. A couple seconds later, the half-fennec laid a hand on his forehead and shook it before returning his gaze to Wolf. The iris of his biomechanic eye, Wolf noted, had returned to its original tone, but that damn smile was still plastered on the smuggler's face. "Got yourself quite a technician there, O'Donnell" he said with a chuckle. "Most folks have a much harder time kicking me out of their systems."

"He's using a neural interface, Captain" Skadi reported, not looking up from the console. "He was using the communications link to boost the signal and monitor us." She pressed a button and the main viewscreen split in half, a record for one Kip Phoenix taking over the half that the smuggler's face wasn't dominating. "There's what we could find on him. I'm going to make sure he hasn't got his hands in anything else."

Wolf scanned the record, noting in particular that the smuggler had used his real name, and that he was in fact related to George Phoenix, CEO of Aerospace Dynamics. Other than that, only the usual was included in the record: birthdate, which made the smuggler roughly twenty-two years old, place of birth, and so on. The last time the record had been updated was six years after the end of the Lylat Wars, when the kid had apparently dropped out of the Aerospace Engineering Academy on Eladard. Despite the half-fennec's admission to being a smuggler, there was no criminal record in the Archives, and only several starport records noting the presence of one K. Phoenix's freighter in one of the hangers attested to the fact that the kid had been operating as an itinerant of some sort within the boundaries of Cornerian space. Nothing particularly fascinating, but then again that would be how smugglers preferred their records to look. Wolf also couldn't shake the feeling that he'd encountered the name before. It took him a moment, but his head snapped back to glare red hot fire at the half-fennec when the memory of their last meeting hit him. "Phoenix," he growled, "I knew I recognized that ingratiating smile from somewhere." He gripped the railing of the platform tight to keep himself calm. "How'd those parts for _my _Wolfens treat you? Fetched a good price, I hope."

Kip's smile faltered slightly, but to the smuggler's credit, he didn't seem particularly frightened by Wolf's anger. "Wolf, please," he attempted to reason with the lupine, "I was merely carrying out the task I was being paid to perform." He pouted a little, making his best "I'm sorry" face. "It was just business; either I jacked your parts, or I'd be unable to fuel my ship. Surely you of all animals can understand that I had little choice in the matter."

Wolf growled. In truth, he knew exactly what the half-breed was talking about. If you didn't have a government's backing, like Star Fox did, there was no guarantee that you wouldn't be forced into things by the many demands of life on the move, but Wolf also knew that, compared to mercenaries, smugglers were almost never hard pressed for work. There were simply too many people looking to dodge tariffs and trafficking laws for such a thing to happen, if one really looked for the work. Kip Phoenix had no doubt taken the job simply because, out of all the offers he had, it paid the most. No, this guy wasn't getting off that easy. "Don't assume our lives are even remotely similar" he snarled. "I don't care if you're ship was about to fall apart at the seams," he continued, "you wrecked one of my transports, stole valuable parts that took the better part of a month to find, and set my operations back several weeks. Now," he concluded, cutting to the chase, "you've got about two minutes to persuade me not to reduce that scrap heap your piloting to ash." Behind him, he could hear Panther chuckle, obviously amused at the shocked look that sprouted on Kip's face, finally taking the cocky edge out of the smuggler's smirk, if not erasing it entirely.

The smuggler let out a long sigh, and his good eye took on a sad glow, "Cutting straight to the heart of the matter, eh Wolf? I can respect that." He broke eye contact with Wolf, glancing towards his invisible companion again as his voice took on a decidedly more somber tone. "My partner and I, about a week ago, were approached by a regular client, asking us to pull a job for him. It seemed simple enough; board a Cornerian vessel while it was refueling at a station near Sector Y, and recover a prototype missile launcher for mass production on the black market. Our client had all the necessary identification and documentation to get us onboard and into the armory forged prior to offering us the job, so basically all we had to do was show up at the right time, get the launcher, and jet. The weapon was already in high demand, so we were offered a substantial cut of his profits, enough so that my partner and I could hire a couple of pilots and lay the foundation for our own shadow corporation."

Wolf raised an eyebrow, and Panther scoffed. "That's a hell of a lot of credits for one job, kid" the mercenary captain said, not quite convinced. "You sure that's all there is to the story?"

The half-fennec smirked again, making an effort to appear innocent. Wolf swore to God, or whatever higher power might exist in the universe, that he was going to wipe that thing off the smuggler's face the first chance he got. "Pretty much, chief; we just made off with the weapon. As for the damage to our ship," an embarrassed chuckle escaped Kip's mouth, "well, let's just say that the Cornerian's decided to check with Central Command regarding our 'visit', and took offense when our deception was made apparent."

"He's lying," Leon suddenly piped up.

Kip heard the accusation, and glared at Wolf. "Who the hell is listen…"

"Think you can hold a moment, Phoenix?" Wolf demanded more than asked, urging Leon to keep quiet with a crippling glare.

"I don't have much fuel left, chief, so…"

"Good. Then you won't be going anywhere." Wolf signaled Skadi again, and the vixen put the smuggler on hold.

"Make sure he doesn't try to hack the system again," she told the communications officers before joining the rest of the team on the room's upper level. "Got a plan, sir?" she asked

Panther chose that moment to jump into the conversation. "Panther thinks it would be best if the Green One told us what possessed him to interrupt the conversation. He assumes much about this smuggler's story."

Both of Leon's eyes snapped onto the feline, and a throwing knife appeared in his right hand. "Are you questioning my judgment, warm-blood?" The chameleon demanded. He sounded eager, like he wanted Panther to say "yes".

Panther tensed, one hand straying to the blaster on his hip. "Easy, Green One; Panther merely wishes to know what you do, for once. Let's not make a mess of this lovely room."

"Actually, I think the walls could do with a coat of red paint," Skadi commented, a vengeful smile dancing behind her cobalt eyes.

"Stop, all of you! Act like a team, damn it!" Wolf shouted, clamping down on the platform railing even tighter. He could feel the metal about to start warping under his vice grip, but then again maybe the team could use a reminder of just how much strength wolves could muster when given reason to. He decided to save Maintenance a hassle, and let go of the railing before addressing Leon. "Panther, despite his bluntness," he began, tempering his voice's volume and tone, "has a point. You said that Phoenix is lying; why?"

The chameleon sighed, put away his knife, and went into another dissertation. "Cornerian military protocol normally favors disablement over destruction when pursuing a vessel that has stolen military supplies, weapons included." He began to tick of the reasons for the policy on his scaly, clawed fingers: "It allows them to bring the thieves in, find out who they deal with, and administer justice to anyone who's within their jurisdiction." His eyes split up, dividing the assassin's attention between Wolf and Panther. "If you get caught, nearly every dealer and crime lord you've ever dealt with is at risk of being found out and indicted. It's one of the major reasons why the Federation has been so effective at eliminating black market operatives operating on their planets and stations recently."

Wolf shook his head in amazement, and didn't suppress a chuckle quickly enough to completely muffle it. Instead, it came out as a short, bark-like sound. "Care to explain what that has to do with this, Leon? You're losing me."

"I think I understand," Skadi chimed in, talking around the longest of three hairs that, unlike the rest of her pale fur, matched her eyes. All three were long enough to partially obscure an eye, but the longest one came down low enough that the vixen could chew on it, as Wolf noticed she often did when she was nervous or thinking. "Basically, you're saying that, judging by the damage, someone didn't bother to try disabling him. That means that he may be lying about who he stole from, or worse, he's stolen something much more damning to the Cornerians than a simple weapon." She stopped a moment and let the hair slip out of her mouth, "Unless I missed something."

Wolf could've sworn Leon grinned slightly before he spoke, something even more uncharacteristic for the assassin than it was for himself. "No, you've grasped the gist of it, Skadi," he affirmed, "our new 'friend' may not know it yet, as unlikely as that may be, but he's in possession of something incredibly important to its owner. You know as well as I do that the Cornerians, if that is indeed who he stole it from, won't stand by and let him do what he will with it, Wolf. They'll hunt him down and gut him like so much raw fish before they allow that."

Wolf leaned on the platform's railing, scratching his chin. If Leon was right, there was a veritable firestorm on Kip Phoenix's tail right now. The only questions now were: Did Wolf want to place himself and, more importantly, his team and station in the path of this storm, and how much time would they have to prepare before it hit? This wasn't the kind of decision he could make on his own in good conscience, so he turned to his team for their opinions. "Well, he definitely ain't going to make it to another berth with his ship in that condition," the lupine mercenary declared, "so our choices, in short, are: let him land, or let him die." His eyes settled on Skadi, who stood up even straighter under his gaze. "Your opinion, Skadi?"

The vixen hesitated a moment. She wasn't normally the one approached first on such matters. "Well," she began, "I honestly don't trust this guy. I mean, he's quite the actor, seeing as none of us would have seen through his story, if not for Leon's foreknowledge of Cornerian protocol, and that neural interface of his is going to make keeping the station secure much more dicey with him onboard, not to mention the people who might come looking for him." She crossed her arms underneath her breasts. "Add in that the guy is clearly trying to hide things from us, and under normal circumstances, I'd turn him away without a second thought. He's manipulative, and that makes him too dangerous for my liking." She sighed and shook her head, "Considering that turning him away is the same as killing him at this point, though, I'm loathe to do so." Her eyes met Wolf's, and a tiny smile graced her face, "I will stand by your decision, sir."

Wolf nodded. "Noted, Skadi," he said. He turned his attention to Panther, but caught himself, and glanced back at the vixen, "And didn't I tell you to call me by my name?"

The artic fox blushed for the third time in the past hour. "Sorry. Old habits die hard, Wolf," she apologized.

Wolf kept his expression nondescript, something he was finding rather difficult all of a sudden. It irritated him, but not as much as he felt it should have, which in turn irritated him even more. "No apologies needed, just don't forget this time," he said, quickly tearing his eyes from Skadi to regard Panther again, but not before an amused snicker entered his ear from Leon's direction. Now what the hell did he find so funny, Wolf thought? He decided to ignore the chameleon, "How about you, Caruso? Your thoughts?"

The panther's tail twitched back and forth, a sure sign the cat was considering his words carefully. "Panther agrees with the Snow Angel that this Kip Phoenix is a dangerous man," he admitted. "He's got a quick mind, and to take as much fire as his ship has, and still manage to escape his pursuers, he and this partner of his know what they're doing. They'll be a challenge to keep under control, at best. And yet," a toothy grin appeared on the sable cat's face, "and yet Panther finds the half-breed's mannerisms, how you say, endearing, and Panther so enjoys knowing the little half-breed has enraged the Cornerian money-changers. Panther thinks the gutsy little fellow might become a valuable friend, if you will but trust him."

"Do you now?" Leon scoffed.

Panther shifted his gaze to the chameleon, and winked at him. "Such was one of the thoughts that persuaded Panther to join Star Wolf in the first place, Green One. Besides" the big cat paused for dramatic effect, "if this smuggler has something of importance to Corneria, then should we not see if Star Wolf can benefit from it?"

"The panther has a point," Leon affirmed, "though it does pain me to admit it. We may find what Phoenix has rather useful." The chameleon closed his eyes as he continued to speak. "Judging by what I've seen of his character, getting anything out of him would be akin to pulling the teeth of an enraged Earthwalker if he were on his own and in a better situation. However, given the numerous glances off camera, he is highly concerned for his partner, as I suspected he would be. he will be willing to give quite a bit for their sake. We can use that to slowly back him into the corner and extract the truth from him." The assassin's eyes snapped open again. "All in all, this little piece of prey will likely prove more useful as a potential friend than as a corpse, as Caruso has suggested. Be cautious about it, but I say we let him dock."

Wolf leaned back against the railing, focusing on nothing in particular so his gears could begin to spin freely. Finally, his lips parted in a toothy sneer, and a throaty, delighted rumbling built up in his throat. "Take Phoenix off hold, Skadi. I have a proposition for him."

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When Wolf's face finally reappeared in the communication's window on the pilot's console, Kip barely suppressed a sigh of relief. The lupine mercenary wore the same scowl as before, but there was a peculiar gleam in his eyes that Kip wasn't sure he liked. "You still breathing, Phoenix?" he asked.

Kip grinned once more at the wolf on the screen, falling back into his practiced manner of speech. "Right as rain, chief, though I'll be running on fumes soon." He glanced over at Marl, who gave him another reassuring smile, though the emeralds set in her face belied the same nervous tension that the smuggler felt gripping his own chest at the moment. She needed rest, they both did; not the best situation to be negotiating in. "So, can I land my ship or not?"

Wolf's muzzle split in a toothy grin. If Kip wasn't frightened before, he certainly was now. "Sure can, kid, we're prepping hanger four for you."

Kip cocked his head, not sure he'd heard what the mercenary said correctly. "Come again, chief?"

"I said you and your partner are welcome to stay on Sargasso while you fix your ship, provided," Wolf paused a moment to let that last word sink in, "you give me and mine something for our trouble."

Kip chuckled despite the tightening noose around his heart. He'd expected this obstacle, and was prepared to deal with it. "How's about the standard pauper's fare, Wolf?" he proposed. This was, normally, the best kind of deal one could extract from a smuggler in the Lylat System. Basically, Kip had offered to let Wolf analyze and take notes on any material goods he found in the smuggler's possession, make copies of any useful data he had, and take possession of any useful goods Kip might have a surplus of. "I actually took two of the prototype launchers, so you can have one for that crafty little engineer of yours to play with." He smiled expectantly at his video screen.

Murmurs could be heard through the comm. link, and Wolf glanced to his right and nodded before responding. "Not a bad deal, Phoenix," the lupine captain said, "but I'm going to be honest with you. My team doesn't trust you, and neither do I." His eyes narrowed dangerously, and his voice took on a deep, ominous tone. "I think you're hiding something, and even if you aren't, there's likely some trouble on your tail anyway. I'm going to have to add one item to the bill."

Kip raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure what the wolf could possibly want, unless he somehow already knew what Marl and he had really gone after on the Dreadnought. "I'm listening."

"One job of my choosing, no charge, redeemable at any time."

Kip failed to suppress a grimace, and he heard Marl breathe a barely audible curse. If there was one thing a smuggler in his right mind avoided at all costs, it was being forced to owe someone a favor. Most animals used such arrangements to force the smuggler to do something ungodly risky, if not outright suicidal. He recalled an old saying that he overheard in a cantina on Fortuna once: "If you owe an animal a favor, you might as well buy a casket now." Suddenly feeling as if all the sleep he'd missed the past few days had caught up to him, the half-fennec rubbed a hand over his eyes and let out a tired sigh. It was a horrible situation, but he had to do something. He didn't rightly care if he suffocated in the vacuum, but he had promised to keep Marl safe, and he'd be dammed if he'd let himself screw that up. "All right, Wolf, deal," he conceded, staring at mercenary with cold eyes, "but the free job only applies to me; my partner's not going to be obligated to you or anyone on that station. Take it or leave it.'

"What are you doing?" Marl gasped, clearly not pleased with Kip's decision. "No way in hell am I…"

Phoenix cast a blazing red glare in her direction, demanding silence.

Wolf's eyes took on a thoughtful gleam for a split second. "Done. The team and I will meet you in hanger four momentarily," he announced, the wicked smile returning to his face. "It'll be a real pleasure to meet you in person, kid".

The communication's window closed, and Marl jumped on her partner. "What the hell's your problem?!" she demanded. "There's no telling what kind of sick meat grinder he's going to put you through!"

"Did it look like I had a choice, Marl?" Kip demanded, defeat and anger evident in his tone. "It was either do what he wanted, or drift until we run out of oxygen." He got out of his chair to and kneeled next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I couldn't let that happen, sis."

The she-wolf stared at him, the anger on her face slowly being replaced by sadness. "I know that," she admitted, "but did you have to limit the deal to yourself? Can't you trust me?"

Kip smiled. It was similar to the one he'd given Wolf, only much warmer. "Don't be silly" he whispered. "There are very few animals I truly trust in this system, and you're at the top of that list." He broke eye contact with her, determined, "I just couldn't put you at risk. I swore to take care of you, and…" he snapped his jaw shut, not wanting to say the words that had suddenly popped into his skull. No, he couldn't think like that right now.

Marl leaned forward. "And what?" she asked, laughing a little. "You aren't usually at a loss for words, Kip. Out with it."

Kip's good eye met her gaze, and the cocky grin returned. "Nothing. I just refuse to let Wolf push my little sister around."

Marl sat up, scowling and crossing her arms in front of her. "Kip Phoenix, I will not be babied, even by you," she stated with enough force to stop a tank. "Besides," she said, smiling again, "if I wasn't around to pull your ass out of the fire, who would?" She took Kip's hand off her shoulder, and held it firmly in her own. "I'm going to follow you, whether you want me to or not." She winked at her partner, "Get used to it, brother."

Kip sighed, trying to hide his fear from the piercing green orbs that held his own in place. "I know" was all he could manage to say. He stood up again, and Marl followed suit, easily standing at least ten centimeters higher than him. "We'll need to clean this place up before we land. I'm going to split up what we decrypted onto three separate discs, and hope Wolf doesn't take to close a look at any that he finds. Head to the hold and unpack those launchers. We're going to want to make sure Wolf's men get an eyeful of those as soon as they step onboard." He returned to his seat, and made a few pre-landing checks. "Oh, and tell CID to play dumb. He knows the drill."

"All right," Marl said, and made her way out of the cockpit.

Alone again, Kip let his grin slip, and he began to break up the files. He'd promised Wolf the pauper's fare, but that only applied to what the mercenary could actually find, and Kip Phoenix was nothing if not a master of turning the system against itself. Nonetheless, he knew that life wouldn't be much easier with Star Wolf watching Marl and his every move. Well, at least they weren't running anymore, he thought, but a now familiar knot of fear gripped his chest, causing the smuggler to wonder how long the reprieve would last.

"Dear Lord," he prayed as he worked, "it's been a while, I know, but I'm not calling for myself." He looked out the cockpit window at the rapidly approaching space station. "Just watch out for Marl, ok?"

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Millions of miles away, Peppy Hare, five star general and commander of the Cornerian Federation's military forces, was busy arguing with the only animal capable of giving him a direct order: the Prime Minister.

"Sir, are you certain that this is necessary?" the aged veteran asked. "I mean, we're not certain that they stole the intel you claim they have, are we?"

"We're close enough, General" the Prime Minister, a blood hound named Damien Briggs, informed him. "The _Sagittarius _reported an unauthorized transfer of data to Phoenix's ship via remote link before he and his partner fled the scene in it. That's what tipped the crew off to the smuggler's plans." Briggs took a sip of his coffee before continuing. "Besides, the mere possibility that he has data on the Excavation is enough to warrant the use of all available resources to apprehend them. Your men are to detain anyone even remotely resembling the descriptions of Phoenix and his partner relayed to us by the _Sagittarius_, and you will contact Dept. I to commandeer any agents they have free to spearhead the hunt for them on the neutral and Directorate controlled planets. I've already posted a bounty, so hopefully we'll receive mercenary help, as well."

Peppy shook his head, causing one of his long ears to flop over and nearly knock his glasses off. The Excavation had been nothing but a pain in his backside ever since it had began, and the Prime Minister and Parliament were still forcing R&D to withhold information on the project from him, so he still didn't even know for certain what it was. "It just seems like a lot of effort, just to catch two smugglers" he explained as he straightened out the offending organ, "I mean, wouldn't extra patrols at ports and bounty hunters normally be enough?"

The Prime Minister shook his head. "Not this time, General. Those two made a laughing stock of the _Sagittarius_, and the Venomian's have taken notice. They think we might be getting sloppy, and capturing the thieves ourselves would do much to debunk that theory. Besides, on the off chance that the Venomians hired Phoenix, we need to catch him before he hands off the data to them, or Bowman may very well decide that he has not choice but to declare war upon learning of the Excavation. We're not ready for that, not by a long shot, and you know it even better than I."

Peppy sighed; Briggs was right. He might be overestimating the advantage the Excavation would afford the Federation, but the last thing anyone needed right now was a war with the Directorate. "As you wish, sir. I'll hand down your orders," he assured the bloodhound before cutting the connection. He sat down in his chair, suddenly feeling very heavy and sluggish. The old hare switched on his intercom to call his secretary. "Patch me through to Dept. I, Lawrence," he paused to rub his forehead with a grey hand, "And bring me some aspirin, please."

"Right away, Pep" the secretary said.

Leaning back in his chair, Peppy stared at the glass of scotch on his desk, and a brief pang of sorrow hit his aged heart. It wasn't for anyone or anything that he normally though of with sadness, but for the smugglers who had hit the _Sagittarius_. They might be criminals, but the hare wasn't sure anyone deserved the hell that he was going to have to put them through to get that data back.


	3. Solidifying Webs

Author's Note: Happy New Year, and a new chapter is here just for you! NO fighting, once again, but I all but guarantee blasters and blades will be leaving their holsters in the next chapter. Thanks again to notfromearth7 for reviewing, and to everyone else for reading (I passed 100 hits, woo!). anywho, I once again encourage more people to review, so I can make this thing even better for you, but I'll keep writing regardless. Enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you around the site!

Discalimer: I don't own Star Fox's canon plots, characters, or locations. I do own Kip, Marl, CID, Skadi, and as of right now, Vincent and his buddies, Chuck and Lucas (who you'll meet at the end of the chapter).

P.S. Mad props to the first one who can tell me where I got Vincent's last name without looking it up (not that I'd know if you did :P)

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Chapter 2: Solidifying Webs

_Capital City, Corneria._

Seated comfortably in the darkened back seat of her luxury hover car, the directress of Corneria's legendary intelligence and covert ops division, Dept. I, held her government issued PDA/communicator, waiting patiently for the animal she had been trying to contact to answer her call. When General Hare had relayed the Prime Minister's orders to her, she instinctively knew that the best first step would be to activate the department's numerous sleeper cells within organizations deemed potential security threats to the Federation, and this particular agent of hers would do just that. These smugglers, if reports were accurate, were anything but dumb, though they could be accused of having a death wish after what they'd done, so they might have avoided the more obvious enemies of her government's goals, such as the Directorate and the crime lords of Macbeth, but chances were that they'd sought refuge near, if not among, the ranks of one of these threats, as such groups would be the only ones that could even hope to provide them with any protection from Corneria's hunters.

"Operative 057 here. Codename is Dawn. The morning air is still" a voice suddenly chirped out of the PDA.

The directress chuckled; considering that it was well past dusk in Capital City, the operative's statement was quite humorous, but the security statement confirmed the speaker's identity nonetheless. "This is Mother. Scramble the workers. Objective is being mailed to you by the drones as we speak."

"Certainly, Mother, you will be kept updated on their progress," the operative confirmed before abruptly cutting the connection.

The directress sat back, content in the certainty that the order she'd just relayed would be carried out to the letter. Sadly, the sleepers, most of whom were simple thugs and fugitives who'd sold their services to Dept. I in exchange for avoiding a harsh sentence, would likely fail to apprehend or neutralize the targets. Instead, they would merely alert their overseers of the targets' location or locations in the event they'd split up, prior to meeting an untimely demise. Once that task was completed, a couple of the department's Field Agents would be able to swoop in and finish the job. The directress knew that Peppy's orders had called for all available agents to be put to work on apprehending the smugglers and the stolen Excavation data, if they had it, but she refused to shut down all of the department's operations for two smugglers, no matter how dangerous they and what they'd stolen were to the Federation.

An idea hit her, and though it was difficult to see in the darkened car, the directress grinned. She would call in three very special Field Agents for this task. Unlike most agents, who worked alone, these three were particularly effective as a team, and would be more than up to the task of extracting the smugglers from the grasp of whatever organization they'd ran to. Unfortunately, they were also anything but subtle, especially when they came together. Considering the importance the Prime Minister had given this task, however, the directress doubted he'd care if her agents blew an entire planet to kingdom come, so long as they succeeded.

"We've arrived at your building, Ms. Phoenix" the shadow enshrouded female's driver announced over the intercom.

Moments later, the driver opened the right side door of the car's backseat. Squinting against the countless sparkling lights illuminating the city like a sea of fireflies, the directress stepped out of the dark vehicle, revealing an attractive fennec fox with sandy blonde fur and green eyes, dressed in a simple black business suit and skirt. "Thank you, Lewis" she said to the driver, handing him a currency disc with a couple hundred credits on it. The toad was paid rather well by the company he worked for, but she liked to express her thanks for making her his exclusive client once in a while. "I'll see you in the morning. Give my regards to your wife."

The muddy brown toad grinned and nodded. "I certainly will, Ms. Phoenix," he assured the fennec, "have a lovely evening."

Fara Phoenix smiled warmly, and waited for the car to pull away before heading into her apartment complex. As she boarded the elevator to ascend to her apartment, a small pang of some indecipherable emotion hit her, causing her to freeze inside the tiny moving room.

Unbidden, an image of a brown, male half-fennec flashed in Fara's mind, grinning as if he had fooled the whole universe with some clever magic trick, and the emotion solidified into a distinct feeling of concern for his well being. The vixen shook her head, trying to shake the sensation, but it wouldn't give way to her will.

True, she thought, her cousin was rumored to be involved in some pretty shady dealings, and he'd certainly brushed the subject of his work aside last time they'd talked, but that was three years ago, and even if he was working along those lines, he wouldn't dare try and knock over a Cornerian battleship. He might be a troublemaker, like her father said, and he might even be a little crazy, but Fara knew he did not take unnecessary risks. He wouldn't do something as suicidal as this, she told herself.

Her rationalization freed up her mind enough to press the button for her floor, and the vixen felt the slight jolt of the elevator beginning its ascent. However, the small pit of uneasiness in her gut refused to seal up completely. As she stepped out onto her floor, she conceded to the truth at the core of her concerns: She was afraid she might finally have to choose between her family and the nation she had, to date, devoted her life to, and she had no idea which she'd choose.

Deep down, Fara had always known this might happen. She personally had believed whole heartedly in the righteousness of Corneria's government, but even when she had been fighting on the front lines in the Lylat Wars, she knew her father's corporation supported Corneria primarily out of convenience, and now that Aerospace Dynamics practically ran one of the most staunchly neutral planets in the system, the possibility that her family and Corneria might end up on other ends of the playing field was more real than ever. Then, of course, there was Kip.

Fara's young cousin had always been a loose canon. The vixen had never known her uncle very well, since he died just after Kip was born and had only come to visit her father on Eladard once, but she'd been told the half-fennec took after his father almost to the letter. Carefree and rambunctious, Kip had always preferred the wild deserts around the tiny port he'd grown up in on Titania to the Phoenix family home on the great city-planet his mother had sent him to for schooling, and whenever he came to live with her family for a semester, he invariably would get himself in some manner of trouble in his efforts to "stir things up". Her father pretty much hated the "rebel pup", as he called him, but Fara had always respected Kip's spirit, if not all of his views on life. A good fifteen years and her wartime experiences separated them, but all the same she had shared many heated, but friendly discussions about almost anything one could imagine with the precocious young kit whenever her responsibilities to the Cornerian military let up enough for her to come visit. She'd been sad when he dropped out of the engineering academy, and frightened when he'd shown up on Corneria three years later, a wounded she-wolf in tow, thugs from Macbeth on his tail, and a distinct evasiveness in his voice. The last thing she wanted was to be the one who handed down the order that finally separated the wild half-fennec's head from his shoulders.

Upon arriving at her apartment, Fara immediately went to the small bar she kept in her tiny living room, poured herself a gin and tonic, and sat down on the rust toned couch that was the only comfortable place to sit in the room, still obsessing over the dilemma her mind had manufactured.

She would call the Field Agents tomorrow. If the sleepers acted quickly, as they tended to, the overseer drones would have information on the thieves' location or locations sometime early in the day. Then, she would put in a request for whatever information the drones had on the targets. The things generally operated on a "need to know" basis, like most things in Dept. I (hell, only Peppy and the Prime Minister even knew she was in charge of the department), and only sent information on targets to agents who met criteria set by herself, General Hare, or the Prime Minister, in order of increasing priority. Fara wasn't always included on those lists when the other two officials controlled them, but she was usually permitted to look over whatever information she requested. She'd prove to herself that Kip wasn't one of the targets, and then she'd do her job, business as usual.

The vixen ran a hand through her sandy hair, and glanced down at the minute glass in her hand. With a swift motion, she downed the contents in one gulp. Even with the assurance she'd just given her mind, she knew the alcohol would probably be needed to keep her sleep peaceful.

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"Well, I'm certainly unlucky today" Kip muttered, rolling over on his back to get a good look at the hangar's ceiling as his brain recovered from the blow Wolf had just delivered to his head. The mercenary had come flying into the hangar almost immediately after Kip and Marl had disembarked from their damaged freighter, and before the smuggler could so much as greet him or thank him for his hospitality, Wolf had clocked him with a powerful right hook. He'd heard the mercenary mutter something along the lines of "consider that payment for past grievances", but Kip's ears had been ringing too much to be certain. The smuggler attempted to move his jaw, receiving a jolt of electricity to his pain receptors and a sickening "pop" from his bones for his efforts. Well, that was surprising. It had been a long time since somebody had come anywhere close to rattling Kip's cage like that. Slowly, he got back on his feet with a little help from Marl, who was grumbling something about "damn thugs" and casting a heated glance towards Wolf and his team. Feeling relatively steady again, the half-fennec took a good look at the infamous mercenary squad.

Because he was the only animal in the room without fur, Leon stood out like a sore thumb. The pale green, almost teal reptile stood several paces behind his boss, his face as expressive as a half-decayed corpse. Every second or so, he flipped one of the many throwing knives that he kept holstered in the bandolier he had strapped on over the loose black t-shirt he was wearing with a nimble flick of his wrist. Judging by the shirt and the black jogging pants with a single white stripe on the right leg he was wearing, the chameleon must have been working out when he'd gotten word of Kip and Marl's arrival. Unfortunately, that didn't make the sight of Leon Powalski, the most feared member of Star Wolf (after, perhaps, Wolf himself), catching a knife over and over again, alternating which end rested in his scaly palm, any less unsettling. Hell, the mere fact that the chameleon wore a bandolier full of throwing knives while working out was creepy enough. Kip got the distinct feeling that the reptile was sizing Marl and him up as potential targets, and suppressed a shiver.

A short distance to Wolf's right, a night black feline in a sleeveless green flight suit that could only be Panther Caruso sat, or more precisely lounged, on a sealed storage container, a rather lewd smirk on his face as he stared intently at the smugglers. No, Kip noticed, the panther was barely even noticing him; his attention was all but completely devoted to Marl. Well, perhaps he wasn't focusing on _all _of her; if the smuggler was tracing the cat's line of sight correctly, then he was mostly paying attention to the she-wolf's slightly larger than average chest region. Kip frowned, feeling the urge to shield his adopted sister from those wandering yellow eyes, or better yet, claw them out of the feline's skull. He wasn't about to deny that Marl was easy on the eyes, but Kip knew she didn't like to flaunt herself or be ogled. Her wardrobe consisted of her faded brown leather jacket that didn't quite reach her hips, khaki cargo pants that neither concealed nor flaunted the curve of the same, and a simple forest green shirt with a high neckline; hardly the style females who wanted the kind of attention the self proclaimed Casanova of Star Wolf was giving Kip's partner chose. The smuggler made a mental note to keep a close eye on the feline.

Oddly enough, the half-fennec noted, there was a fourth animal standing to Wolf's left, one he didn't recognize. The artic fox's icy eyes were glued to the smuggler's ship, and judging by the way they roved over the body of the vessel, Kip deduced that she had a mechanical background of some sort. In fact, something told him that she might be the technician responsible for booting him out of Sargasso's systems. Her clothing, however, told another story. Dressed in what looked for the world to be a black military officer's uniform, and looking quite comfortable in it, the vixen had clearly had some sort of connection to the military in the past. The only thing that didn't scream "business" about her was the gray t-shirt under her partially unbuttoned jacket, which sported a neckline low enough to expose a portion of her mid-size bust. That particular detail didn't make sense to the smuggler, considering her highly formal bearing, and he wondered if she wasn't trying to get a particular someone's attention with a sudden change of style. Truth be told, Kip thought, she was quite pretty, and he would have definitely made an effort to get to know her, had the circumstances been more favorable, but as it was he merely took a moment to subtly scan her figure. Just as his eyes refocused on her face, the vixen's eye's snapped to meet them, locking the smuggler's gaze in place. The frozen orbs didn't bear any perceivable hostility, though they weren't openly inviting him in either. If anything, there was a wary curiosity about them. Kip stared into them a moment longer before he began to feel a bit hot under the collar, and turned his gaze back to Wolf.

The mercenary captain's face was a mask of restrained hostility, and the steel tinted eyes the wolf kept trained on the smuggler and his partner gleamed with a repressed heat. Kip knew that one of the pair was biomechanic, but he could only guess which. Whoever built the eye must have been a pro, and been paid very well, to disguise the mechanical organ so well. The lupine mercenary's black flight suit and spiked shoulder pads made him look like he'd be at home in one of the speeder gangs that had often raised hell in the town Kip grew up in, but as the crushing blow the he had just delivered proved, Wolf O'Donnell was much more capable than those thugs could ever hope to be. The wolf's right hand clenched an unclenched slowly, and though his face didn't show it, Kip was pleased to note that the appendage looked more than a little sore at the moment.

"Didn't hurt your hand, did I, chief?" the smuggler asked, sounding innocent, though his sly smirk told otherwise.

Wolf grunted, and glanced down at his hand. "It's felt better, but it doesn't make the hit any less satisfying" he said, wiggling his fingers like he was testing their ability to move. "Either I'm slipping, or your jaw's made of something harder than bone."

Kip laughed heartily, and rapped his left hand against the side of his ship, and though it was muffled by the skin and fur covering his knuckles, the tone of metal on metal could be heard. "Skeletal reinforcements, chief" the smuggler confirmed, "they take most of the give out of the things. Oh, and you can thank the Aparoids for this beauty." The half-fennec rolled the right sleeve of the somewhat grime stained, white shirt that he wore under his unbuttoned, black vest to reveal a metallic appendage. "Damn near got infected when the bugs invaded Macbeth; had to have Marl here cut off the original to contain the spread" he finished, nodding towards his partner.

Wolf raised an eyebrow, and Kip hoped he hadn't played the wrong hand. That story had been intended to foster some respect from the mercenary for his resilience and determination, but the mercenary didn't seem so much impressed as slightly put off. "A neural interface, biomechanic eye, skeletal reinforcements, and a mechanical arm" the mercenary mused aloud. "So you're a modder?" he said more than asked.

Kip frowned. "That's what some folks call animals like me" he admitted.

Marl piped up, her resentment at the treatment she and Kip had received so far coming through loud and clear. "You have a problem with that, Wolf?"

"Oh ho ho, what a firebrand," Panther purred. "Panther does so enjoy it when they're a little on the _picante _side."

Marl and the white vixen's eyes both shot towards to the feline, the two displaying the exact same mix of revulsion and surprise with their expressions. The sight made it hard for Kip not to laugh, and Panther didn't even bother to try and stop himself. It seemed the big cat just didn't give a damn what the assembled crowd thought of him.

"Keep it in your pants, feline" Leon hissed, "wouldn't want to embarrass yourself in front of the newcomers with your inadequacies, now, would you?"

Panther glared at the reptile and crossed his arms. "Panther will have you know that he is more than adequate in any way you can imagine, Green One." A large black paw trailed its way to the panther's blaster holster, "Don't make him prove it to you."

Quicker than Kip could follow, a second knife appeared in Leon's other hand, and the reptile held both weapons by the blade, ready to be thrown. "Any time, cat, any time."

Now it was Kip's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Trouble on the home front Wolf?" the half fennec asked.

Wolf laughed and shook his head at the comment, then glanced over his shoulder at Leon. "Oh, that?" the mercenary captain scoffed. "The long lull in business has made the jibes a bit less friendly, but that's just how Leon and Panther tell each other 'I love you'" Wolf assured the smuggler. A musical titter escaped the white vixen at the comment, and though Leon's seemed more sincere than Panther's, both bickering animals glared indignantly at the back of Wolf's head.

Kip smiled, not sure what to think. He'd expected Star Wolf to be a bunch of no nonsense killers, but the group before him seemed more like a family. A slightly dysfunctional family with guns, perhaps, but a family nonetheless. Maybe Marl and he would leave this station in one piece, after all.

When Wolf had finished chuckling at Leon and Panther's expense, the mercenary turned back to Kip, seriousness once again controlling his face. "Seriously, though, Phoenix," he said, "I could care less if you're a modder. We've got a few other guys like you on the station," he explained, "and besides, we've got a policy on Sargasso: if it doesn't concern the station directly, nothing you've done before arriving here matters once you're in the hangar, and you leave your prejudices with whatever ship brought you here. We've got too many kinds of animals on this rig to deal with that kind of shit." He glanced at Marl, "So there's no need to get all defensive, little lady, ya hear? You're boyfriend isn't gonna get shot unless he gives me a damn good reason."

Marl blinked, likely as surprised by the Wolf's conversational tone as Kip was, and was slow to respond. "He's not my boyfriend," the she-wolf explained, "but… thank you, Wolf."

Wolf nodded, and shifted his gaze to Kip's freighter. "Well, she's seen better days, hasn't she?" he stated the obvious. The normally tan freighter was covered in scorch marks, a substantial bite had been taken out of one of the wings, and an ominous wisp of smoke was gathered around the lower starboard engine. Even worse, one of the auto turrets had been fried, and Kip knew that teaching the automatic gunner to work its replacement would be a real pain. "I don't suppose you have any spare parts on that thing?"

Kip shook his head, "They would've weighed us down. Other than our personal effects, the only things on board are the launchers and the maintenance droid. He's little more than a glorified tool box, but he's good for grunt work."

Wolf frowned and rubbed his chin, his eyes still glued to the ship. "Skadi," he finally asked, "how long do you think it'll take to return this thing to 100?"

The white vixen glanced at Wolf out of the corner of her eye, then gave the ship another once over with her piercing gaze. "It's hard to say without giving her a thorough check up," she said, equations and figures glimmering in her eyes, "but if the wing doesn't need to be replaced entirely, it will take at least a day to find the parts for it, and another full day's work to patch it up. That damaged engine and the turret will definitely need to be replaced, since I don't have parts for those particular models" she concluded. "Once we fix the rest of the damage, though, she will at least be space worthy again." She chewed on a strand of sky blue hair a moment. "I would say that a good four days of solid work, with a team of at least three mechanics, would get her into the ink again."

Wolf stared at the freighter a moment longer, than let out a long, resigned sigh and turned to face Skadi. "Make it happen," he ordered. "I want you and one of your best mechanics to help Phoenix work on it. Give him everything he needs to get the thing flying again, within reason." He then glanced back at the pair of smugglers, "you'll owe me for any parts that I don't feel the pauper's fare accounts for. No arguments."

Kip shrugged, "Beggars can't be choosers, chief. I just want to get back into the ink and out of your hair."

Leon piped up again, "How convenient. That's exactly what we want, too."

Wolf rolled his eyes just before Skadi spoke up. "Why must I help with the repairs, Wolf?" the arctic fox ventured. "I won't be able to maintain Star Wolf's fighters while I'm working on his freighter," she explained, gesturing towards Kip.

"You're going to help with the repairs," Wolf told the vixen, "because you're the only one I trust to ensure the job gets done in the estimated time." The wolf's face seemed to struggle with itself for a split second before breaking into a restrained, reassuring smirk. "Besides, the fighters have never been in better condition, thanks to you" he assured Skadi in a way that brokered no further argument. "They'll be fine for a few days without you."

Skadi smiled back at Wolf without hesitation, idly brushing her sky blue hair out of her eye. "Fine then," she said, a hint of red entering her cheeks "and… thank you for the vote of confidence, Wolf."

A light snapped on in Kip's brain as he witnessed the odd exchange between the two, and the smuggler suddenly had a good idea as to who the "particular someone" the vixen had her eye on was. He glanced at Wolf and mentally shrugged. At least it wasn't Leon.

Marl cleared her throat. "I hate to interrupt anything," she said, drawing curious glances from Wolf and Skadi, "but if we're going to be here for a while, I think Kip and I will need some lodgings. There are quarters on the ship, but I know I personally would prefer a proper room and bed for once."

Wolf flashed a fang filled grin at the she-wolf, and once again the look caused a sinking feeling in Kip's gut. "That's only fair" the mercenary agreed, "we'll set you up with a couple bunks. You can share a room with Skadi, Marl, so you'll have the necessary privacy."

Kip's muscles tensed. If Wolf managed to separate him and Marl, it would be that much more difficult for them to work together, or even communicate, and he undoubtedly knew it.

Marl apparently thought the same thing, for she immediately attempted to find a way out of the situation. "I wouldn't want to impose, Wolf" she held her hands out before her and smiled sweetly at the mercenary. "Kip and I share a room when we're on the ship. It's no big deal, really."

Wolf shook his head, not hearing any of it. "No dice, missy, we don't have any empty rooms. It's either bunk with Skadi, or one of the guys, and though Panther, I'm sure, would be more than happy to take you in…"

"Without a doubt, friend" Panther chimed in, grinning roguishly at Marl and winking seductively at her.

"… I doubt you want to share a room with him," Wolf finished, barely missing a beat. "Besides, Skadi's been the only lady on the station for a couple months now, and she could use the company." Wolf glanced at the snowy vixen, "Right?"

Skadi focused her attention on the she-wolf, and Kip thought she was looking at his partner in much the same way she'd been looking at his freighter. "It wouldn't be a bad thing" she admitted, "to have another female around." Her analysis complete, the vixen looked back at Wolf, "She's free to stay with me."

"Am I to assume I'll be sharing a room with you or Panther then, chief?" Kip ventured, hoping that the latter was the case. Based on first impressions, he preferred the cat's loose tongue to the wolf's veiled hostility.

The disconcerting grin continued to grace the lupine mercenary's face. "I'm afraid my place only has room for one," he said.

"Panther's room is the same," the big cat informed Kip. "And you don't have the, how you say… equipment, to share a set of sheets with him."

Well Kip was stumped. He could have sworn Wolf would want to keep him especially close, and here he was letting him stay with some no name henchman on the station.

"I think Leon here's been looking for a roommate, though," Wolf said, turning expectantly to the reptile. "Ain't that right, Leon?"

Shit, Kip thought. The scaly skinned animal had been so quiet, the smuggler had forgotten all about him. The half-fennec fought his body's urge to sweat bullets as he prayed for the second time that day, this time that the chameleon would be unable to house him. Hell, if things continued at this rate, he'd be a friggin priest by the end of the week.

The assassin's eyes did not so much as flicker in response, preferring instead to remain fixated on Kip. The smuggler had heard a story once, about how, before the various sentient species of the Lylat system abandoned their more primal instincts for technology and reason, that the only time a chameleon's armored eyes would focus on the same spot was when they were stalking prey, and were about to make a kill. "I can make room for him" the reptile confirmed, effectively shutting the trap around the half-fennec's neck, "if that is what you wish, old friend."

"It is," Wolf said, and Kip had to refrain from shouting "shit" out loud.

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"Pass me a brew, will ya, Vinnie?" A burly bulldog called from the other end of the security control room.

A gray fox, easily in his early fifties, sighed and moved his feet off the portable refrigerator unit that he'd been using as a footstool. He pulled a drink out of the cold box, hopped out of his chair, and walked over to where the bulldog was monitoring a flickering wall of camera feeds from all over the base. "Here you go, Chuck" he said, handing his companion the frosty can.

"Thanks, Vinny" Chuck said, popping the tab and taking a long slip of the can's bronze contents. "I swear I'd go stir crazy without a drink to help pass the time. This post is the pits, bro."

The gray fox couldn't deny that the bulldog was right. Of all the posts a security worker could draw on Sargasso , security control was the worst, and the fact that no one wanted the job was the main reason why their boss had started rotating the posts bi-weekly. Sweeping his eyes across the wall of monitors, Vinny's eyes stopped on a particularly pleasant image and grinned. Well, maybe the job had a few advantages, if you were into that sort of "entertainment". "Bit of eye candy on camera fifteen, Chuck."

Chuck flicked a couple switches on his console, and an enlarged image of the camera in question appeared on a screen embedded in it. The two animals were presented with a view of hangar four, where Star Wolf was "welcoming" the two smugglers who had caused such a ruckus almost an hour ago now, but the soldiers weren't interested so much in that. Rather, Vinnie drew his comrade's attention to the right hand side of the shot, where their boss, the artic fox everyone knew as Skadi, was standing straight as a board, her back to the camera. The bulldog chuckled delightedly, took control of the camera, and zoomed in for a close up of the vixen's rump, outlined perfectly for them by her form fitting military pants.

The bulldog let out an appreciative whistle. "Damn, but the boss is a fine bit o' stuff, ain't she, Vinn? It's a pity she's got Wolf's protection, or I wouldn't hesitate to put an arm around that waist of hers, lemme tell you."

"You and me both, old chum," Vinnie chuckled, eyes on the screen, though in truth he could care less. He'd lost his wife in the Lylat Wars, and hadn't really looked at a female the same way since. Chuck, however, was still a pup, by comparison, and Vinnie knew that life on the run hadn't been easy for the bulldog. He'd come to see Chuck as a foster son of sorts, and as such he tried to do what he could to keep the canine as content as possible. He wished some of the boy's tastes in entertainment were a bit more refined, but then again female company was hard to come by when your life was a series of layovers and hideouts, so he couldn't really blame the pup for enjoying the sight.

Chuck moved to pan the camera up a bit to get a better view of the vixen's back just as the room's one door opened to admit a frazzled ape, who appeared about the same age as Vinny.

"Guys!" the ape panted, placing his hands on his knees to steady himself. He attempted to tell the pair something, but it came out in a jumble of indecipherable half-words and gasps.

"Try taking a breath or two before talking, Lucas" Chuck suggested to the ape, shaking his head in annoyance. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be working in communication's this week?"

Lucas took the bulldog's advice, and after a few moments, started over, unhooking a PDA from his belt as he spoke. "We just got called up," the ape began, immediately grabbing Vinny and Chuck's attention. "I got a message while Wolf was talking to the smuggler, but I waited to check it until he left." The ape looked up at the soldiers, fear evident in his eyes. "It's the Cornerians; they want us to capture or eliminate those two smugglers, and their ship while we're at it! What should we do?"

Vinny and Chuck glanced at each other, mirror images of shock written on their faces. They'd all known when they'd made a deal with the Cornerians in exchange for their freedom that they might be called to do something like this, but now that the task was staring them in the face, neither of them was sure what they should do.

Lucas looked back and forth between the two animals expectantly. "Guys?" he asked.

Vinnie scratched his head before proposing an idea. "Couldn't we just ignore the call? I mean, we made the deal over a decade ago, there's no way they still have their eyes on us, right? Offing those smugglers means crossing Wolf. The guy's been pretty damn good to us, and I don't want to ruin what, honestly, is a pretty sweet gig."

Lucas shook his head. "No dice, Vinn. The mere fact that they sent us orders means a few things:" The ape began to tick off points on his hand, "the tracking chips we consented to having planted inside us when we made the deal are still active, otherwise they wouldn't even know we're _alive_; secondly, if the chips are active, they know where we are, and worst of all, they'll be expecting reports."

Chuck uttered a muffled curse, and Vinny grimaced. Lucas had always been the resident gearhead of the trio, so there was no reason to doubt the ape's reasoning when it came to technology. "Couldn't we just pretend we didn't see them or something?" the bulldog asked. "There's no way the chip's can tell them if we're lying, can they?"

Lucas scratched his chin, deep in thought. "True," the ape agreed, "but that doesn't mean they won't have ways of finding out without us. We might not even be the only sleepers on Sargasso," he reminded the two animals, "and if another tells them the smugglers are here, and we don't confirm it, our asses will go before the firing squad for breaking the agreement, and that scenario doesn't even account for spy drones, Field Agents, or any of the other tricks Dept. I could use to find out we're lying to them!" the ape practically shouted in his panic

Vinnie leaned against the console, the gears in his head spinning at breakneck speeds. He took pride in staying a step ahead of his foes, numerous as they may be, and the number of variables here was certainly making the task more difficult than usual. He'd need to act fast, though, before Lucas became completely hysterical, as was his nature.

"Well, that settles it, then," Chuck crossed his hands over his gut and leaned back. "I say we just figure out a way to off the punks quietly. We don't owe them nothing," he reasoned, "and I doubt Wolf's going to shed any tears over a couple of smugglers, especially if he can't prove anything."

Vinnie raised an eyebrow at his companion. "You're the one who just lamented Wolf's tendency to protect folks" the fox commented, "and now you think he's going to just let two folks he's agreed to harbor get axed? Pardon my saying, but that's plain crazy. He'll lock down the whole station and torture every last animal on it before he lets a murder on his watch go unpunished."

"You got a better idea, Vinn?" The bulldog demanded, clearly insulted.

The vulpine sighed, not sure if he did. When he'd made the deal, he'd told himself it would just be one task. He'd told himself it wouldn't be something too hard to stomach. He'd told himself he could swallow his pride, just once. Now, he realized just how big a lie he told himself. Every fiber of his being was resisting the idea of doing the Federation a favor, of lending a hand to the political machinery that had broken his world like a cheap toy. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. It would only hurt more people.

A dark cloud fell over the old fox's mind. It might be his last run, but goddammit, he was going to do something. Vincent Morello would go out shooting. He turned his burning, but still tired looking olive eyes on Lucas. "We're going to communications" he declared, a hint of a snarl in his voice. "It's time we gave our 'masters' a call."

Lucas's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "You're not going to lie to them, are you? I already explained how risky that was!"

Vinnie shook his head. "Not exactly," the gray vulpine clarified, "though I honestly think backstabbing Star Wolf to any extent is even more risky. It's not all settled yet, and a bit of it depends on what happens when I contact the Cornerians, so I'll fill you in on the whole thing after I make the call." The vulpine flashed a confident, toothy smirk as the plan continued to solidify in his mind. "Rest assured, though, that the Cornerian's ain't getting what they want; not from us, at least."

"Have you lost your bleeding mind, Vinn?" Chuck added his two cents. "This ain't some two bit crime lord you're tryin to outfox here, pardon the pun. This is fucking Cornerian black ops!" the bulldog cried.

The vulpine's grin grew in response. "Maybe, Chuck." The heavy shadows of weariness began to creep into the corners of his eyes again. "I've made dumb choices; more than my fair share," he admitted, "and I'll admit this may end up being the worst one yet." Fire began to crackle in his voice as he continued, "All the same, political machines, of all types, have never done me a lick a good, and I know your stories ain't all that different." Vinnie's eyes took on a faraway gleam. "I owe at least an effort at this to a lot of people, Wolf included for giving an old timer like me a place to lay his head at night." His gazed shifted from Chuck to Lucas and back again. "You've trusted me so far, and you know I don't leave men behind. One more time, that's all I ask."

Chuck's face blanked for several seconds, and then he finally grinned. "Quite a speech, Vinn" the bulldog crowed, "Quite a speech, I'm sold! Let's turn the tables on 'em so fast, the wind knocks 'em over!"

Lucas was much less enthusiastic. "All right," the ape decided, "I'll go along with it, for now. I don't like it, though" he warned.

Vinnie chuckled. Lucas never did like the plan before it got well underway, and that was a double edged sword. It meant the ape could give an "outside" opinion on matters, having mentally distanced himself from it, but it also meant he might take matters into his own hands if the plan didn't yield tangible results within a reasonable time period. That was the last thing the fox needed right now. With that thought fresh in his brain, he walked back to the chair he'd been using, and grabbed a worn, dark grey jacket with red shoulder patches that was hanging on the back of it. He slipped it on, revealing two modified Imperial Army of Venom insignias that were embroidered on the area covering the right side of his chest and the left sleeve. The patch on the chest had three red slash marks patched on over the black fang enclosed in a circle, as if the symbol had been mauled by an enraged beast, while the fang on the sleeve had been largely obscured by a great red star. If he had to play at being the Cornerians' slave, he thought, he'd at least dress like a free man. "Let's move it," the gray fox ordered. "It's time to make the piper pay."


	4. Opening Moves

Author's Note: Hey everybody! I'm finally back with a new chapter :). Sorry it took a while; I just started a new semester, and I have many writing classes. I'm loving them all, but it does make it harder to find time for this story. Don't worry, however; I'm not going to abandon it, it'll just be longer between updates for a while.

Again, MANY thanks to everyone who has read the story so far, and a double dose of thanks to those who have reviewed (notfromearth7 and JyrFalcon345, I'm looking at you two). I'd always love more reviews, but then again I have over two hundred hits on this story so far, so I suppose that in itself is an ecouragement.

Anywho, this chapter has a little action in it, and I was planning for a couple full on firefights, but upon reaching the point where I stopped, i felt I had a full fledged chapter in its own right. That, and if I kept going, this chapter would have been RIDICULOUSLY long. So, without further delay, enjoy this chapter, and expect more of what you'll see towards at its end in the next (unless I decide to be truly evil and return to the sideplot involving Fara and Dept. I in the next chapter instead, to really build up suspense. I'm tempted, but we'll see).\

Disclaimer: I only own the plot, Kip, Marl, CID, Skadi, Vincent, Lucas, and Chuck. Canon characters, locales, and plots are owned by Nintendo, so unless someone has a way of persuading the company to agree to turn this into an official novel, don't talk to me about publishing it.

P.S.: No one's guessed where I got Vincent's last name from yet, so the reward of a boat load of respect is still available (check the last chapter for his last name).

Modification note (1/30/2008): I recently altered some of the content of past chapters, both for character and chronological purposes. The only changes made that affect the story to any tangible extent are that I've made it later in the evening when Kip arrives at Sargasso than it originially was, and instead of suggesting they outright turn Kip away, Skadi now advises Wolf that it might be better to let him dock (though only because turning him away would result in his death), and the age difference between Fara and Kip is now corrected (I forgot she is considered to be 25 during the last Lylat War, according to canon).

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Chapter 3: Opening Moves

Alone in Star Wolf's private exercise room, Wolf's fist connected with a faded brown punching bag once again, the already considerable force generated by the mercenary's honed muscles amplified by his frustration. The sand filled sack drifted back several centimeters before swinging back towards him, and Wolf wasted no time in launching another anger fueled blow at it. He was confused, and he saw confusion as a malicious malady that had to be stomped out without mercy or delay. This particular mental knot was becoming a royal pain to untie, and the wolf's patience was wearing thin. Of course, every disease is, in theory, curable, and Wolf had discovered many years ago that a good workout was this particular illness' penicillin, so as soon as he'd been able to free himself of his responsibilities for a moment, he'd made his way to his "medicine cabinet", which like most areas on Sargasso was generally well maintained, if showing some of the inevitable wear and tear born of periods of neglect and well over a decade of use, both during and before Star Wolf's takeover of the structure. In fact, the royal blue gym mat in the center of the room was the only element of the space that seemed like it had been in the room for less than half a decade. He let his mind get lost in the rhythmic thumping of rubber sparring gloves against canvas, and waited patiently for the source of his confusion to bubble to the surface. His recent encounter with Kip's partner drifted to the foreground of his consciousness, and Wolf let loose a low, furious growl. He hit the bag one last time, leaving the bag to swing in slow, shrinking circles as he crossed the room to a tarnished rack of dumbbells. He removed his gloves, selected a set that looked to be about the right weight and hadn't begun to rust, and sat down on a nearby bench, his mind clouded by a fresh bought of the hated disease. The damn she-wolf had asked him one too many questions, and now an army of topics he didn't want to address were running amok in his head. Wolf began pumping one of the cold iron weights up and down in a simple curling motion as the memory of their conversation unfolded before him.

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Wolf hadn't banked on having to guide Kip's partner to her room, but he couldn't deny the logic behind Skadi's desire to take a look around the smugglers' freighter while Phoenix was on hand to explain the, according to her, "many modifications that had been made to what should have been a simple vessel". So, seeing as Leon had quietly excused himself before anyone could stop him, and he had doubts Marl would end up anywhere near Skadi's quarters if Panther was trusted with the task, Wolf found himself leading the young she-wolf through the halls of Sargasso, initially intent on just getting her to Skadi's room with little, if any, interaction between them. As they followed the faded red guideline down the cold, worn gray halls to the station's main lifts, however, he could feel the female's eyes regarding his back with unveiled curiosity. Wolf finally relented and glanced over his shoulder at his guest.

Though she was leaning ever so slightly under the weight of the faded olive tote bag that she'd slung onto her right shoulder, having refused to let Wolf carry it for her, he estimated that she was barely a little more than a hand shorter than him when fully upright, as was the norm height difference between wolf males and females, and thus it was not hard for Wolf to get a good look at Marl's face. He hadn't encountered a great deal of his own kind in his lifetime, as most of what was left of the various wolf subspecies had congregated on Katina and Corneria, planets he hadn't shown his face on for some time, but Marl's fur pattern was certainly not one he'd even heard existed. The soft, copper fur on her muzzle, face, and ear tips contrasted sharply, though not in an unappealing way, with the coarse, grey and black streaked fur that ran from between her ears and down the back of her neck. The she-wolf's incredibly bright green eyes met his gaze with an unflinching, innocent confidence that reminded Wolf a bit of his younger, untested self. Upon noting this, Wolf immediately erased his initial assumption that, of the two smugglers, Marl was by far the less dangerous.

"Can I help you?" Marl asked with a slight smile.

Disarmed by the she-wolf's friendly tone, Wolf found himself smiling back despite his lingering aversion to conversation. "I could ask you the same question," he retorted. "Your eyes have been drilling quite a hole in the back of my head the whole time we've been walking, if I'm not mistaken."

Marl's smile widened. "Just trying to figure out your game, Wolf," she told him. "You haven't been exactly what I expected so far." She glanced forward. "Watch your head."

Wolf's head span forward just in time to notice the low hanging pipe he was about to crash headlong into. Slowing down so as to buy enough time to duck under the offending hunk of metal, Wolf found himself walking shoulder to shoulder with a highly amused she-wolf. The mercenary cleared his throat in an attempt to shake off the minor embarrassment, causing Marl to giggle, before responding. "And just what exactly were you expecting?"

Marl slid a hand behind her right ear and scratched at it, flashing Wolf a nervous glance. "Honestly, I was half expecting you to shoot Kip and I down the second we showed up," she admitted. "You're generally not portrayed as the type to welcome outsiders with open arms, among other things."

Wolf snorted and shook his head sadly. He was fully aware of what the system, especially the Cornerians, had been saying about him since the Lylat Wars, and though he'd never rightly cared what the suits said about him, and could even admit with only a little remorse that some of the rumors were justified, the fact that regular folks like Marl actually saw him that way stung. He fixed his eyes forward once more and asked, perturbed, "You believe what they hand feed to you out there, then?"

Marl gave a dismissive huff, her voice becoming indignant, "Hardly. The only animals whose stories I was taught to even consider trusting without proof were the patrons of my father's shop, and of course Kip's never been in the habit of lying to me." She sighed and Wolf's eyes were persuaded to meet hers by a nagging sensation that she was looking at him with an expression bordering on, and a large part of him hoped he was wrong, compassion. "Unfortunately for you, though, those same folks always talked of Star Wolf and its 'nefarious' captain as if they were malicious spirits eating merchants alive on the space ways." She chuckled, her voice barking out two quick tones. "I'm being a little facetious, of course, but even with the normal exaggeration one can expect from merchants taken out, you've got to admit that the image is far from pleasant." The smuggler smiled at Wolf once more, though her eyes continued to express that empathetic emotion for which he could find no reason and, quite frankly, was bothering him a little. Animals, with the possible exception of a couple occasions where he thought he detected a similar, if more veiled, emotion from Skadi, just didn't send him that kind of vibe.

Wolf chuckled, unable to deny that Marl made sense and, perhaps subconsciously, to relieve the tension that had entered the conversation. He rarely encountered someone whose logic he could easily follow, and he had to admit it was more than a little refreshing. Arriving at the lift station, the lupine mercenary hit the call button and reclined against a wall, keeping both his eyes trained on his fellow canine. "Maybe I haven't done enough to make the system fall in love with me and mine," he conceded, crossing his arms over his chest, "but then again I never wanted a fan club. I'll leave that bit of glory for the fools what want it, thank you kindly." He smirked at the she-wolf, who had taken up a similar stance along the wall on the opposite side of the lift door, her hands secreted away in the pockets of her khakis, looking for the world like she couldn't be any more comfortable. "Besides, you said so yourself: I'm not what people say."

Marl flashed the same quick, innocent smile she'd given him in the hangar, only without the hidden motive this time, or so he hoped, and Wolf decided glanced up to check on the lift's progress. The thing was still several levels above them, apparently having stopped a couple times to let animals on and off on its way to meet them. His initial instinct was to just let silence reign until the machine arrived, but one last thing was bugging him. "Just out of curiosity," he asked Marl, sarcasm dripping from his mouth like a leaky faucet "how exactly am I not living up to these 'stellar expectations' of yours?"

Marl glanced up at the ceiling, an amused and thoughtful gleam in her eyes. "Mostly, I'd say it's the way you've shown us respect, even though we're strangers, and the way you and Star Wolf came off almost like a family, or at least close knit friends, in the hangar" she finally told him, and Wolf felt a pang of disappointment. He had a reputation to protect on Sargasso, and he was loath to consider what some of the more rebellious elements on the station would do if they started detecting the "softer" qualities Marl seemed to see in him. The thought must have shone on his face, because Marl suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh, don't get so bent out of shape," the she-wolf mock pleaded with him, pouting slightly, "you're still a big, bad mercenary. I'm just saying that, underneath that, there might," she emphasized the last word, "be a downright decent guy. Fear of 'Mr. Badass' isn't enough to pull animals like the ones you've got around here together in any effective way," she explained, assuming a very stern tone, "so you'd best consider that a compliment."

"Noted" Wolf replied with a chuckle.

Marl sent a momentary grin back at him, and the pair spent a few moments in silence before she decided to ask Wolf a question, for a change. "This might be a little bold," she was clearly being careful with her words, "but what exactly do you get out of this, anyway?" Wolf stared dumbly at the smuggler, not sure what she meant, and Marl closed her eyes a moment before elaborating. "I mean, you seem so committed to this, even though it certainly is one of the harder paths available to an animal. You must have a reason for going along with it."

Wolf frowned, sensing where the conversation was going, "I suppose I would."

"So what is it?"

There it was, his least favorite topic, and as pertinent to the conversation as it might have been, Wolf refused to delve into it with someone who had only just ceased to be a stranger. "Good question," he grumbled, breaking eye contact. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

Marl frowned apologetically, and a rather awkward silence fell as the lift arrived to take them to the upper levels, where Star Wolf and the station's crew kept their quarters. A dull, metallic groaning could be hear as the lift began to rise, and after a few moments, the rear wall of the lift gave way to a window overlooking a giant chamber that had once been the site of the station's massive processing and assembly center. Now, the web of conveyor belts and cargo lifts had been converted for use by the station's crew as a sort of hub for all their activities. Wolf gazed upon his "tiny fiefdom", as Panther liked to call it, and Marl soon joined him, her eyes widening a little at the sight of the many animals moving along the chamber's catwalks.

"I never realized _this _many animals lived here," she marveled. "I always kinda figured Star Wolf preferred privacy."

Wolf smiled, keeping his eyes fixed on the view. The sight of all the nearly seven hundred animals that had come to call Sargasso home going about their business and, at least at this distance, looking generally content was one of the things that never failed to brighten his mood, regardless of his current circumstances. "Most of them, like Star Wolf, have a number of enemies to avoid, or just aren't welcome among 'civilized' folk" he informed the she-wolf, happy to let the conversation drift back to less touchy topics. "They come to Sargasso looking to wait for a manhunt to die down, escape creditors, and so on. You name it," he continued, his voice sounding like its owner wasn't entirely in the room at the moment, "and at least one of these fellas came to Sargasso to escape it. They're required to follow the same rules I set for you and Kip during their stay, and some of them just choose not to leave once they've got what they came for."

Marl rested her arms upon the small railing separating the elevator's rear from the window, placing her left cheek in her raised hand as she continued to take in the view. "Why's that?"

Wolf mulled over the question for a moment. He'd never bothered to ask any of the crew that question, so he could only make an educated guess. "I suspect it's because I give them a good deal of freedom" he reasoned. "As long as they keep things civil, and do their jobs, they're free to pursue a fresh start."

Marl shot a sidelong glance at the wolf, a sly grin on her face. "Leave the rest of the system outside the hangar, right?"

The infamous mercenary captain laughed out loud at the recycling of his own words. "Something like that" he agreed with her, resting his own hands on the railing now, "though the money is pretty good on occasion, too". Second chances were a rare commodity indeed, he thought, and as his favorite view was obstructed by a durasteel plated wall once more, a frown crept onto his face. He often wondered if he couldn't use one himself. He briefly thought it would be better to stop the conversation before his mind was drawn any further into areas he didn't like to explore, but he knew that once provoked, his mind would go as far as it pleased anyway, so he decided he might as well continue on. "It's certainly not a perfect set up, but it's a home" he concluded. His brows furrowed and his frown deepened, "For some, it's the only real home they have ever had."

Marl's expression fell, and Wolf detected that slightly irritating emotion radiating from her again, though it didn't make him internally squirm quite as much this time. Thankfully, the she-wolf didn't say anything, and soon the lift jolted roughly upon reaching the living quarters. The two wolves stepped out, drawing a few curious glances from the animals wandering about in the dim light of the corridor. Marl would occasionally smile and greet a passerby as they moved towards what would be her room, eliciting confused stares and the occasional mumbled reply in return.

"Not the most sociable bunch," the she-wolf mused aloud, and Wolf grinned knowingly.

"I wasn't lying when I mentioned that Skadi's been the only female on station for a few months now," Wolf said. "A lot of these guys, particularly the ones who've been here a while, don't really know how to act when a new girl shows up, and quite frankly most of them don't expect you to stick around, anyway."

"Really?" Marl didn't sound like she was buying the story.

"Basically" Wolf confirmed, staring off into the distance. "We get a few ladies once in a while, coming here for pretty much the same reason's the fellas do. They don't tend to stick around for long, though." He chuckled shook his head, "they usually hook up with one of the guys while they're here and leave with them in tow, to boot."

Marl raised an eyebrow. "What's the deal with Skadi then? She going steady with someone on your team?"

Wolf laughed, having a hard time imagining Skadi on Leon or Panther's arm. "She's a special case," he explained to the she-wolf. "She actually tracked us down, believe it or not, just so she could work with Star Wolf. She's an excellent mechanic," he didn't want to leave any doubts in Marl's mind as to the arctic fox's place on the station, "but as far as I know, she doesn't have her eye on anyone in particular."

Marl shrugged. "Could've fooled me," she said, and Wolf's ears twitched at the suggestiveness of her tone. "I guess competition won't be an issue, at least" she reasoned, flashing Wolf a grin that said "just kidding".

Wolf chuckled, though he was still a little unsettled by that last comment. "Just remember," his voice took on a stern tone, "you take one of my boys, and I will charge you for the lost labor. This ain't some nonprofit matchmaking service I'm running, here."

Marl laughed, loud and long, her voice reverberating of the walls of the long corridor they'd turned into like a note bouncing back and forth inside a bell. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that," she assured him, glancing at a disheveled looking terrier that had taken a seat on a crate along the wall while he cleaned an outdated looking blaster before being overcome with another fit of laughter. "I don't think these boys are exactly my type."

"You'll have to tell me what your type is sometime, then," Wolf said. He snapped his jaw shut immediately after the words left his mouth, silently berating himself for letting Marl lower his mental defenses to the point something would just out of his mouth like that. Hell, he would have made Panther proud, that was such a bonehead move. He glanced sidelong at the she-wolf, cursing silently when he saw her slightly bemused smirk and raised eyebrow.

"Good question," Marl sent Wolf's own words right back at him once more, "I'll let you know when I figure it out." She held Wolf's gaze a moment longer, the smirk still plastered on her face, but thankfully she didn't pursue that particular topic, and what was for Wolf a comfortable silence settled over the pair until they arrived outside Skadi's quarters. Wolf entered a skeleton key code, known only by him, other members of Star Wolf, and the station's Quartermaster, into the pad beside the heavy door, and it opened with a slight grinding sound.

"End of the line," he announced, standing aside to let Marl into the room. Though not any fancier than the other rooms on the station, Skadi certainly kept her personal space organized. The dark blue sheets on the bed the white vixen used had been made up with meticulous care, and though she certainly hadn't returned to the room herself, she'd apparently made a request to the Quartermaster, as a set of drab, grey bed sheets and towels were resting on the upper bunk, waiting for Marl to make use of them. The she-wolf went straight to the empty closet opposite Skadi's, stopping momentarily to glance at a picture on Skadi's dresser, then slipped her tote bag off her shoulder and onto the floor, before finally turning back to regard Wolf again. "The washroom is through that door right there" Wolf pointed towards the rear of the room, "the hot water doesn't always work, so you'll have to take a gamble when you shower."

Marl nodded and knelt down, unzipping her bag in preparation to unpack. "Sounds fine," she said as she pulled a pair of pants out of the bag and sought out a hangar for them in the closet, "I think I can figure out the rest on my own."

Wolf grunted in acknowledgement and turned to leave, but was stopped mid stride by the she-wolf's voice.

"Thanks, by the way" Marl told him. She placed a hand on the mercenary's shoulder, and his body tensed a little at the contact. "I know you're taking a huge risk sheltering Kip and I. Your reasons might not be noble, but all the same, I appreciate it."

The hand was withdrawn, and Wolf felt his shoulder muscles, if not his mind, relax. "Sure thing" he muttered, not feeling confident enough in his voice at the moment to say much else. "Feel free to call if you need something. There's a comm. unit behind this panel," he tapped a section of wall beside the door, "Communications can page me or anyone else you request." He stepped out into the hallway and let the door slide shut before anything more could be said.

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Wolf pumped the bar and disc shaped plates suspended over his chest up once again, having moved onto the bench press during his period of reflection. The tape in his mind's VCR wound to a stop, and he snarled as he let arms drift back towards his chest again. Why the hell had Marl been so interested in talking to him? Had she been trying to lull him into a false sense of security? More importantly, why had he actually cared to respond? He replayed his responses once more, noting with more than a little disappointment how concerned about her opinion of him he'd made himself seem. Obviously, he didn't really care, right? He returned the bar to the dark metal wall brackets that housed it when it was not in use, and sat up with an annoyed grunt when he realized that he couldn't answer his own question. He glanced over at the punching bag once more, and he tugged his sparring gloves back on, feeling the need to project his frustration a bit. He went to work once more on the worn canvas, and cursed as his mind returned to the topic that had first thrown him onto this frustrating, introspective line of thought: "what do I want?"

Truthfully, Wolf O'Donnell had no idea what he wanted; hadn't for a while. He'd followed his youthful dreams of fame and fortune right into the service of Andross, and he'd gotten exactly what he wanted from the arrangement. His team, of which he'd only known Leon for any length of time, tallied up victory after victory early in the war, and with each one had come a veritable king's ransom and a boost to the wolf's burgeoning popularity as a fighter and leader among the regular soldiers and the citizens of Andross's Venom. However, when the smoke had cleared, he had dealt with his bruised pride at being defeated by McCloud's "merry band of heroes", and most importantly, the losses sustained by the system as a whole had been tallied, Wolf had come face to face with the fact that he had, quite willingly, aided one of the single greatest threats the Lylat System had ever dealt with, even when the simian's madness had become plan for all to see. Worse, he knew he could only blame himself for it. It had been a hard pill to swallow, and he'd had a crumbling team to take care of at the time, so he cast aside his old dreams and allowed introspection as to a new direction to be put off for the sake of convenience. The task of keeping his team, and later the Sargasso crew, fed and the air in their ships' recycling units as fresh as possible while they drifted from job to job turned out to be more than enough to occupy his mind, and so it became easier with each passing day to just ignore the nagging desire for deep thought. At least, that's what he had always believed. For the better part of a decade he lived that way, finding contracts where he could, most of them illegitimate, but things had been comfortable, if nothing else. Then the Aparoid Invasion had resulted in him allying with his old rivals for reasons he didn't understand, though he'd told the team it had been out of grudging respect for McCloud. He wasn't about to admit he had grown jealous of the "great hero" of the system; the vulpine could keep that title, and everything that came with it. Other than backing Andross, he had few regrets, and had found that he enjoyed not having to pander to a mass of screaming fans. Still, as "free" as he was, he couldn't deny that, starting just after that particular decision, he periodically would do things he just couldn't find a satisfactory explanation for.

He suspected the tiny, direction demanding voice he'd ignored all those years had taken the opportunity afforded to it during the invasion to begin struggling back to the surface, and was beginning to affect his judgment more and more. On this occasion, as was usual, his initial instinct was to redouble his efforts and suppress the demands once more. Images of his teammates and members of the station's crew ran through his head, and he reminded himself that too many people depended on him to let personal agendas distract him. He began to hit the bag faster and harder as the images came faster, attempting to carve his commitment into the canvas. However, when his mind conjured a picture of Skadi, his train of thought was immediately derailed. Wolf frowned thoughtfully: starting shortly after she arrived, the snow toned vixen had a tendency to break into his thoughts and bring things to a screeching halt. This was yet another increasingly regular occurrence, and even worse, he wasn't sure he minded the intrusion.

"Having a staring contest with the bag, are we?" a deep, smooth voice crooned from behind him.

Wolf realized that he'd ceased his assault on the punching bag, and chuckled as he finally managed to shut off his meddlesome mind. He was never more grateful for Panther's strange sense of timing. He turned to face the big cat, only to have his restored good spirits nearly shattered when he noticed a certain she-wolf following his teammate into the room. "I was just working out," he told the sable feline, avoiding eye contact with Marl. "I guess my mind must have wandered off."

Panther grinned and let out a laugh that caused his golden eyes to light up. "You're not going senile on Panther, are you?" he asked with mock sincerity, and a short giggle was heard from Marl. "He shudders to think what would happen to the station if you checked into the loony bin."

Wolf just shook his head. Panther, as the youngest male on the Star Wolf team, often cracked jokes about his captain's age, even though the lupine mercenary was just approaching his mid thirties. Usually, Panther himself was the only one to laugh at the quips, but Wolf noted with some amusement that he'd finally found an audience in the young smuggler. "You'd think, after all the times I've handed your ass to you on a platter," he marveled, "in _this very room_, that you'd know better." He slapped his right fist into his left hand a couple times for emphasis, "or are we looking for another lesson?"

Panther held up his hands, palms out, and backed up a step. "Thank you, but no thank you, _mi amigo_," he said. "Panther was merely guiding our lovely young friend here to the exercise room."

Wolf turned to regard the she-wolf, struggling to maintain a cordial smile for the animal he currently blamed for his mental discord. He noted that she had changed into a simple exercise outfit: a green, relatively high necked, for its make, tank top, fingerless black leather gloves, and black gym shorts that came down to just above her kneecaps. Like her normal outfit, it was rather modest, but even so it showed off a fair sight more of the pretty young she-wolf's "feminine assets", simply by virtue of a net loss in fabric between the two styles, and Wolf didn't have to guess what had made Panther so eager to lend a hand. "I hope he didn't demand much for his services," he said, crossing his arms. "Panther tends to request rather," he cleared his throat, "steep payment for helping ladies."

Marl smiled wide for the mercenary and placed a hand near her heart, "Well that's the first time I've been called a lady in quite a while," she wondered, appearing flattered, "and no, he didn't demand a thing." She turned her beaming face toward the feline, who was only all too willing to return the expression, "He was quite the gentleman, actually".

Wolf was cracking up inside. Little did the smuggler know that "Panther Caruso, Gentleman" was even more troublesome than regular old Panther, mostly because it meant the impulsive feline was genuinely interested in his target female, or at least that had been the case in the past. Wolf preferred to let Marl figure that out on her own, however, so he managed to hold back a knowing smirk as the conversation continued. "Well, that's good," he said, completely sincere, "though I figured you'd be too tired to work out after running from the Feds all day."

Marl shrugged as she took in the room with a roving gaze. "I thought I would be, too," she admitted, placing a hand on her hip, "but it turns out my body's still got a fair bit of energy running' through it, thanks to the adrenaline rush from the getaway. I figured some exercise and a warm shower ought to leave me plenty drained and ready to hit the sack." Her eyes shifted to Wolf's rather tight, black workout shirt momentarily, and her smile took on a mischievous bent. "Actually," she mused, sauntering over until she was barely twenty centimeters from the mercenary, "I haven't had a good sparring partner in a while." Without warning, her hand shot out and landed a playful punch on Wolf's bicep, "How's about we find out if these muscles you seem so proud of are functional or just for show, eh?"

Wolf raised an eyebrow, and even Panther let out a semi-surprised grunt. For someone who dressed like they practically wanted to be invisible, Marl certainly pulled no punches when speaking. Hell, it felt like she was going out of her way to get under his skin. "If you insist," he said and bore a tooth-filled grin at the smuggler, determined not to let his shock show through his speech, "and don't mind getting a little roughed up."

Marl let out a short laugh, and twirled around to walk back towards the door, her tail swishing back and forth as she moved. "Hope I don't disappoint you," she chuckled as she turned to face him once more, her left arm locked in place by her right at the elbow in a stretch. She glanced over her shoulder at Panther as she shifted her arms so the right was now locked down, "Care to play referee, big guy?"

Panther placed a hand over his heart and made a slight bow, "It will be Panther's pleasure, madam, and may he add that he'll be rooting for you in the bout."

Marl took a seat on the floor, and began performing a set of leg stretches. "Well, isn't that sweet," she cooed, flashing Wolf a "give me a break" look that almost made him laugh out loud.

Panther leaned against the door jamb and chuckled. "Consider it a favor. You'll need every advantage you can get to best the _capitán_."

Wolf grinned victoriously at the she-wolf, and stepped up onto a blue gym mat in the center of the room. "I'll try and go easy on you, no worries."

Marl propelled herself back onto her feet with a quick push of her hands off the cold metal floor, and joined the mercenary on the mat. She assumed a relaxed pose that Wolf identified as one of the "ready stances" of Venomian kick-boxers, and narrowed her eyes. "You do that," she warned, "and I guarantee that you'll have a black eye and some sprained joints when this is over." Without warning, she lunged at Wolf, and he found himself forced to deflect a lightning fast kick aimed at his head.

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"Yeah, fine, we'll get it done," Vincent assured the faceless speaker at the other end of the private line Lucas had opened for this conversation in a level, determined voice.

"See that you do," the quite obviously modulated voice warned. "Do not forget: if we so much as suspect you've betrayed our agreement, you will not be safe anywhere in this system for the rest of your life."

Vincent bared his teeth in a mute snarl, already determining how (and if) he could throw a wrench in things without letting on that he had turned against the Cornerians. He glanced down the line of blinking and buzzing consoles around him at Chuck and Lucas, both of whom wore highly concerned expressions, and the vulpine veteran's expression fell even further. Sure, his friends would be invaluable accomplices in derailing the plan that had apparently been set in motion by the other sleepers that he had just learned were on Sargasso, but that was only if he could persuade them to stick with him. It wouldn't be hard to keep Chuck on his side; the bulldog was a trusting sort to begin with, and tended to follow Vincent with even less prodding than he needed from anyone else. Of course, Lucas's infuriating logic stood more than a small chance of changing the canine's mind, should the ape choose to defect on this occasion, and that possibility was fast becoming likelihood. He was lucky the ape had even agreed to let them use the communications center for this call. His finger absentmindedly brushed against the handle of one of a pair of blasters strapped onto his belt. Maybe it would be easier if he…

"Are we clear?" the voice sounded impatient.

Vincent's eyes broke away from his comrades, and he furrowed his silvery eyebrows. "Crystal" he said, and cut the connection to the animal, or at least he thought it was an animal, at the other end of the line. He glanced once more at his longtime companions, and attempted to smile at them, though he knew the result looked more pathetic than upbeat. He couldn't believe he had actually begun to consider eliminating the ape. He couldn't go back on his vow to keep them all safe, no matter how little loyalty they might feel towards him, lest he come to deserve the title of "less than useless" he'd had thrown at him more than once in his lifetime. "We may be in for a rough ride," he sighed, feeling even older than he actually was.

Lucas crossed his arms and leaned back in a worn chair that appeared to have been salvaged from the dumpster of some government office complex, the words "I told you so" written on his face alongside more than a little anger. "I'd say _six_ other sleepers constitute something much worse than a 'rough ride'," he scoffed. "I told you this was a bad idea."

Chuck's body language was less obvious, as the bulldog simply slouched against a console, his face a mask of nonchalance backlit by the emerald light of the console's monitor. "Time to level with us, bro; how do you propose we handle this?" he asked. The bulldog drummed the thick fingers of his left hand on the console, the only sign that he was in the least bit agitated, and waited for the gray vulpine to respond.

Vincent sighed and sat down in the only unoccupied chair within reach. "I had hoped to avoid this," he kept his eyes fixed on the floor as he spoke, "but now that these other sleepers are involved, I don't see any other option." He raised his gaze to meet the inquiring stares of his comrades, "We're going to reveal ourselves to Star Wolf. We'll have a better chance of stopping the others, and whatever else the Feds send after those smugglers, with their help."

Lucas threw his arms up in the air in a show of exasperation, "what part of the Cornerian's threat didn't get through that brick attached to your neck, Vinnie!" the ape was furious. "Or are you simply looking to get us all killed?"

"Do you honestly believe the Cornerians will honor their agreement if we play ball?" Vincent demanded, matching the ape's volume as his last string of patience began to snap.

Lucas wasn't about to give up without a fight. "You're damn right I believe it!" he growled, his right hand smacking against his leg in a tight fist. "Vinnie, the Lylat Wars are over!" the ape's tone took on a pleading quality. "The Cornerians aren't trying to blow us away, there's no crazed doctor laying waste to the system, and I don't care how many axes you have to grind with politicians, Corneria is probably the only player on the board that we can back with the lowest likelihood of getting killed right now."

"Bullshit," Chuck snorted at the last point of Lucas's argument, and Vincent's hopes for salvaging something from this situation were bolstered by the bulldog's show of support. "Wolf will sick the whole station on us if we follow orders, we've already gone over that. As for the wars being a thing of the past," the bulldog challenged his simian friend, "take a look at any news vid and tell me with a straight face that things aren't at least as unstable as they were right before Andross started the last of the wars."

Vincent nodded subconsciously. "The classic response of governments to threats is to start silencing the disloyal," he threw out one of his signature bits of anti-government wisdom, "and what with the Directorate flexing its muscles on their doorstep, and smugglers running off with their prized possessions, you can bet your ass the Feds ain't exactly feeling comfortable right now." He focused his full attention on Lucas, hoping to change the ape's mind by sheer force of will and "stage presence". "We bow to their orders," he told the simian technician, pouring incredible force behind his words, "and we're banking on Corneria's good graces, and I guarantee they'll have some steep conditions behind them. Free mercy just isn't something they think they can afford right now." He chuckled cynically and allowed his eyes to drop back to the slightly tarnished metal grating that served as the communication pit's floor, "We'd be lucky enough just to pull the job off without getting gutted by Wolf's boys or the boss, much less get any measure of peace for upholding our end of the deal." A final thought came to him, and his hand drifted up to rest on the top of his head. "They probably won't even turn these damned chips off afterwards," he decided, a hint of anger creeping into his voice.

Lucas continued to scowl at him. "What makes you think Wolf will even believe you?" he demanded. "Are you just going to walk up to him and say 'hi, I've been ordered to kill your guests and destroy their ship to protect sensitive government files, but I'd rather help you'?!"

Vincent spun his chair towards the console, and with a few quick key strokes, brought up several blueprints for different sections of the station on the monitor. "Confessions will come after we help them break up whatever our 'friends' are up to." He grinned victoriously at the viewscreen, "That's why I convinced that operative to let me tap into his department's tracking system." He hooked his PDA up to the console, and in seconds six blinking, firefly like lights appeared on the screen, broken into three pairs. One pair was stationary, apparently waiting for something in hangar ten, another was headed in the general direction of Star Wolf's private quarter of residential level three, and the last pair appeared to be headed straight for hangar four. "If my instincts are right, the two moving pairs are both looking for the smugglers, and the stationary one is likely holding down an escape vehicle," he glanced at Lucas, enjoying the look on the ape's face as he threw his own "I told you so" glare at him, "so they can escape the station before security blows their heads off." He motioned for Lucas to surrender his PDA, and after the ape had reluctantly done so, he hooked it into the console with a length of fiber optic cable. For a brief moment, a progress bar flashed on the viewscreen as the tracking and map data was downloaded to the hand held device. "I'm going to use this baby to track down the two buggers scouring the residential levels" he explained as he unhooked the tiny computer from the console. "You, Chuck" the muscular canine stood up straight as he was addressed, "are going to head to hangar four and, hopefully, link up with the second mobile group before they hit the smuggler's ship. Lastly," he focused a very solemn eye on Lucas, "I'd like you to go and meet the animals holding the fort in hangar ten, and at the very least disable whatever they'll be using to lift off without permission. If they decide to run, we'll leave them nowhere to go."

Lucas frowned. "So hold on," the ape was obviously confused, "What exactly are we up to?"

Vincent smiled mischievously, "Well, for starters, we're going to make nice with the sleepers when we find them. They'll lead us to the smugglers and, seeing as they've tied themselves to each other, probably Star Wolf. Once we've accomplished that, and this is the best part," he explained, his eyes twinkling a little, "We simply switch sides without warning when the shooting starts. Once we're the only sleepers still breathing, we can essentially lead the Cornerians astray with whatever false information we see fit to relay to them, while simultaneously keeping the 'targets' one step ahead of their efforts."

Lucas glanced down at the floor a moment, brows furrowed. "I still don't like it," he finally decided. "Even if we did pull off this little operation of yours, we'll just have to deal with the Cornerian's next attempt to catch those two." The simian locked eyes with Vincent, his expression suddenly icy. "How do you know this plan of yours is going to be at all effective at saving our skins?"

"I don't know!" Vincent snapped, and with the admission came a strange feeling he could only remember encountering once before in his life: acceptance. The confounding hybrid of sadness and contentment at embarking upon a course that, while imperfect, he knew he could follow and still sleep at night reflected in his eyes as he met the ape's gaze once more. "I readily admit that this might end up landing us all in a shallow grave, Lucas," he said, the energy drained from his voice, "and quite frankly I don't care at this point." A sudden wave of fatigue rocked the aging vulpine's frame, and he was forced to shut his eyes and take a deep breath before continuing. "All I know for certain is that I can't throw another skeleton into my closet," he said. Hell, he thought, he was still cleaning out the first couple batches of bones to get lost in there, and he was quickly getting too old to go in after them. "Stay here and keep your hands clean if you want, and I'll swear to my last breath you had no part in this" he assured the simian, "but I won't be responsible for you otherwise." He spared a final, disappointed glance at his longtime associate as he rose from his chair. "We need to move fast if we're going to catch up to the other sleepers, Chuck," he reminded the bulldog as he brushed past Lucas and ascended the stairs out of the communications pit, "especially since we'll have to catch them on the first attempt at this point".

Chuck glared down at Lucas with more than a hint of a warning in his eyes. "Watch your ass, chimp" he growled, and quickly followed Vincent out of the room.

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Immediately after Vincent and Chuck left, Lucas found himself confronted with a conundrum: what now? Vincent's warning had the ring of a serious threat, but he knew that the vulpine wouldn't raise a finger against him. The old veteran was too caught up in his admirable, but ultimately foolish beliefs about loyalty and family to harm a single silver hair on Lucas's head. Chuck, however, had never really trusted him, and if he was going to go against their plans, he would definitely have to deal with the temperamental canine, if nothing else. Lucas hated to admit it, but he also agreed with much of Vincent's logic: the Cornerians were not likely to simply let them walk away when this was over, no strings attached, regardless of what they did. On the other hand, he knew with what he saw as nearly one hundred percent certainty that Vincent and Chuck were setting out on a suicide mission, and Lucas didn't relish the idea of losing his life in a battle that he'd rather ignore. Ever cautious, the former lab assistant to the infamous Dr. Andross spent several moments in silence, his hands forming an upright triangle in his lap, the familiar hum of machinery helping him focus on attempting to sort out his options. He couldn't even wash his hands of the matter, as inaction would count as a breach of contract to the Cornerians, and even if Vincent and Wolf succeeded, he'd be viewed as a liability by the mercenary captain, at best. In the end, he simply saw no way to outrun (and outgun) the Cornerian Federation's elite special agents, nor did he see any sort of gain from such an action. At least if he did as he was told, he had a chance at freedom, however slim. Of course, that meant he would need to derail Vincent's plan, and the easiest way to do that would be to let the Cornerian's know of the vulpine's betrayal. With a grim nod, Lucas spun back to the humming communications console, and opened a line to the latest entry in the system's call memory.

"What is it now?" the same voice from earlier demanded. "You have your orders, now get to it."

A slight twinge of guilt gripped the simian's heart as he began to speak. "I just felt I should warn you that I think some of your sleepers have been compromised," he told the voice's unseen owner, mulling over each word before he let it out of his mouth. "I checked the in the station's communications records," a carefully crafted lie flowed easily past his lips, "And there was a quick spike in calls between the IP address of Wolf O'Donnell's personal communicator and those of the various Star Wolf members, not ten minutes ago." He paused a moment, trying to gauge the Dept. I representative's reaction by the tone and pace of his breathing. "I am led to believe Star Wolf may know the sleepers are in motion, if not who they are."

A long moment of silence fell over the conversation like a thick, stuffy, black bed sheet, and when the unseen Federation servant spoke again, Lucas sensed the same care being taken with their words that he was taking with his. "Tell me who's responsible for this," the voice demanded, almost emotionless thanks to the technology disguising its true tone.

Lucas frowned, and the twinge of guilt gripped his chest once more, stronger this time. He couldn't just turn two animals that had saved his life three times over to the Feds, could he? Lucas shook his head, fighting off the feeling as best as he could with a reminder that this was necessary to protect himself, a goal that had always taken priority in the past. They'd made their choice, and it was likely that they'd be dead within the hour, anyway, so there was no way this could come back to haunt the technician in the end. "It's hard to say, but judging by the level of respect they've both expressed for O'Donnell," he told the representative, "I'd be willing to bet my two associates, the fox who just spoke to you and his canine friend, are likely candidates for that bit of guilt." He paused one more time for emphasis, running a hand through the silver mop of hair on top of his head to calm his nerves. "Regardless, I would treat any statements by any of the other sleepers with suspicion from here on out." He diverted his eyes from his screen to the map of Sargasso that had moved over to an adjacent monitor when he placed his call. "I'm going to stay here and attempt to support the others by monitoring the situation," he announced, and cut the connection before the Cornerian representative could reply.

The monitor before him went blank, and the simian leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed in an attempt to ease the bought of nerve induced nausea in his stomach. "Only thing to do now is to wait and see how the firefight turns out," he told himself in low voice, and after a moment he felt his nerves loosen up. Hell, he thought with a smirk, he could taste freedom already.

"You really should have listened to your friend, simian," a low voice rasped from just behind him.

Lucas attempted to sit up and turn to face the speaker, shocked that anyone could have gotten so close without him knowing, but was quickly stopped by a teal, scaled hand around his neck and a knife point pressed into his chin. The ape shuddered; there was only one animal on Sargasso with those hands and weapons.

"Is that where the rest of you are hiding?" Leon Powalski asked his hostage, sounding somewhat fascinated by the digital map of the station and the six blinking lights moving lazily across it.

Lucas glanced at the map and nodded, or at least tried to. Maybe if he cooperated with the chameleon, he'd spare him. His hopes were dashed, however, as he sensed Leon's grip tighten, and the reptile spoke directly into his right ear.

"No point in relying on a traitor's help, then," he hissed, and with a lightning quick motion plunged the gleaming knife into Lucas's chin. The ape jerked reflexively and attempted to squirm out of his chair, but the assassin's grip proved too strong, and with another quick jerk threw him onto the floor, leaving a sizeable gash in Lucas's throat by holding the knife steady as his body twisted and fell onto the metal grating of the pit floor with a muffled clang.

As soon as he hit the cold metal, Lucas rolled onto his back and brought a hand to his throat, futilely attempting to stop the burning pain the crimson stream escaping his body was causing. His vision began to blur a little, but despite that, he could still make out the thin shape of Leon, glaring down at him from above.

"Loyalty to a good animal will all but invariably yield better results than betraying them," the reptile sounded like he was reading a dictionary as he took a knee beside the dying animal's body. "It is… a pity that you didn't learn that," he said, his voice becoming quieter with each word. A rough hand drifted forward and gently brushed against Lucas's face, forcing his eyes closed. "I'm sorry things had to go this way," the assassin muttered, almost inaudible now, "but at least let me put a stop to your suffering."

Lucas sensed the cool plastic of a silencer being pressed against his forehead. Leon let out a small sigh, and Lucas thought he heard the chameleon plea for forgiveness, though whether it was forgiveness from him or from some god figure, he wasn't certain. A moment later, a final burst of searing pain gripped him, and the ape felt his mind pull away from his body, never to return.

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Leon remained crouched beside the fallen simian for nearly a full minute after he'd pulled the trigger, a slight slump in his shoulders. Finally, he stood up, holstering his pistol as he did. He recovered his knife and began cleaning the thick, red juices off of it with a grey cloth tied to his belt, but his eyes remained on the corpse before him. A now familiar, twisting feeling ran through his stomach, and the chameleon shut his eyes to fight the painful sensation.

There would be time for mourning later, he thought, remembering the six flares of life on the monitor. No need to get choked up over doing a job that is not even finished yet.


End file.
